Line twist is a common occurrence in fly fishing if one fly
fishes enough. I have often wondered why my tippet line sometimes looks like a twisted
pretzel when I have completed a cast. It
is so frustrating when you are landing fish and all of sudden you noticed your
tippet is tingled into your leader and sometimes even into your fly hook. I
have done a little research on the subject and found different opinions from
individuals and even fly companies. One opinion is the line size itself; using
a larger tippet size will cut down on the twist. The assumption here is the
larger tippet size is a bit stiffer making it more difficult for the twist to
occur. I was even told that the fly itself can play a part in the twist,
especially if the fly has a lot of hackle. They base this assumption on too
much false casting which can cause the fly to spin in mid air resulting in line
twist. Another theory is having your tippet line too long, which causes the
line to overlap in a series of loops which can also cause knots in the line
along with twist. I have tried all these suggestions and found that the line
size makes more sense and works best for me. Of course one can’t use larger
tippet line all the time especially when staking trout on a clear stream. In
that situation it would seem you would just have to adjust to a smaller tippet
size and accept the fact that you may encounter twist. What is your remedy to alleviate
line twist?
