Freeze Up

[match-hatch]

What is the best solution, if any for freezing line and guides. I know the best answer is warmer weather,but any other fix would be great.
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[icthys]

There really isn't anything you can do.

The best thing to combat it is to fish with a fixed length of line drawn out. The thing with freezing guides I've found is all the water the line carries up to the guides is how they end up freezing. If you keep the fixed length out and not strip the line in you aren't bringing the water up to the guides. It's a little bit of a pain to get used to but once you do it makes winter fishing more enjoyable.

Once the guides freeze up I dip all the guides back into the river and let the river melt the ice. I then give the rod a good shake to get as much water off the road as possible.

One more thing, keep any water off your reel or it'll freeze up also.
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[flygoddess]

[font "Comic Sans MS"][black][size 3]I use the ice off paste, and works kinda (gives you a second cast or three) but like itchy says, nothing works real well.
With todays Tech, and things getting smaller, and smaller, you would think someone would come out with a heated line[laugh]
Man, if someone could do that, they would be billionaires in no time
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[match-hatch]

I've have been using gink fly floatant,with little success. thought there might be a better product out there. Thanks for your time. The Provo between the damn and the midway turn off was fishing great yesterday with some top water action, then it was back to the chuck-n-duck around two in the afternoon.
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[icthys]

It's funny you mention the heated line. I at one time thought real hard about how to get the guides to heat up. I came up with a pretty good solution and may just try it out one day on a cheap rod blank. The only draw back to my design would be a little extra weight but I'd give up a lighter rod for ice free guides in the winter any day.
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[flygoddess]

[font "Comic Sans MS"][black][size 3]You got my interest![/size][/black][/font]
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[sinergy]

Try water proofer, I use 303 water proofer on my rod tip keeps the ice off, but never thought to try it on my line....

And with out sounding like a cheezee sales man Instructions say it can be use for all kinds of stuff even say Orvis uses it on there gear

If want to read more go here:
[url "http://www.303products.com/tech/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_ID=17"]http://www.303products.com/tech/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_ID=17[/url]
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[HFT]

Be careful of what you put on you fly lines some fly floatants will degrade a fly line.
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[match-hatch]

I have used vasaline on the guides in the past and found that it was horrible on my line, now I have my warm weather spools and my cold spools. I found that is a good way to recycle my old line.
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[riverdog]

Ichtys, I was also thinking you really just need to heat the guides. Probably just the last several before the tip. I was thinking to avoid the extra weight you'd want a battery pack that you wore on your body and just wiring running up to some sort of heating element that acted as a guide. It probably wouldn't take that much as you would just need to keep the guides slightly warm,say to 35 or 40 degrees. That shouldn't add any significant weight to the rod.
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[flygoddess]

[font "Comic Sans MS"][black][size 3]So, get on it guys and come up with sumpin! You could get rich on a good idea![/size][/black][/font]
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[bioman]

I can just imagine my prototype model: car battery strapped to my chest, 12 gauge house wire running to the end three guides, guides get red-hot, melt my fly line just as the biggest fish of my life jumps out of the river with the last good fly in my box hanging from its jaw..... Ahhh the possibilities are endless. LOL
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[Flycasting]

LOL... Yer killin me! []
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[katghoti]

We did a proto-type that worked ok, but may need tweaking. We used an old rod for this. We hollowed out the end of the rod and inserted an AAA battery in it. Then we ran a very thin wire up the rod and wrapped it around each guide and back down to a switch in the rear of the handle. When we iced up we turned on the switch and the current from the battery was enough to melt the ice. Didn't affect the rod action any and the fly line seemed okay. We were going to pursue it more, and I would interested in going further if there are interested parties.

katghoti
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