Here is how you setup a Fly Reel

hey it's chris here from bow reach outfitters and let's say you just bought a brand new reel but you want to get it set up well i'm going to show you from start to finish everything you need to do getting backing on here all the knots you need to know getting your fly line on here properly now let's say you did just pick up a brand new flyer reel and you want to get it set up if you got it from us here in the shop of course you'd be happy to set it up here on the machine all professional but eventually you're going to have to do it yourself or you're going to want to do it yourself i'm going to show you how to do that at home so for the purposes of today's demonstration i'm using a reddington run reel it's a 5 6 size i mean very standard kind of reel that you would find and i'm using very common 20 pound dacron backing i'm going to show you how to put your backing on the reel first so first things first let's talk about the reel before we get into attaching things to it first you want to make sure of is that it's set up for the way that you like to reel when i fish i like to reel with my left hand and most wheels come from the shop set up just like that but if you like to reel with your right hand make sure that you reverse the direction there's usually instructions with your reel when you buy it or the fly shop you buy it from should be happy to set that up before they get it out to you now this is what we call an open face reel if i push the center button here on the readington run the spool comes out and you can see that it's basically an open cage now i can attach my backing to this spool and then just stick it on it's going to work great but there are exceptions so here we've got a reel this is a sage trout reel and on here you can see this is a closed cage it's actually sealed inside now if i put backing on my spool and then i try to put it back into the cage it's going to clamp in between the metal here and that's no good so if you have a closed face reel like this just make sure that the backing goes through the hole of the cage and then out before you attach around your spool that way when you put everything back together it'll be coming through that hole the way it's supposed to now this is a pretty simple knot but i want to show you a trick of the trade first if i attach this right onto the spool i gotta wind it by hand and that's not a really efficient way of doing it so i'm actually gonna grab my fly rod here and before i attach the backing to the spool i'm just gonna feed it through the first stripper guide the one that's closest to the handle this will actually be able to spool it up using the rod to hold on to the reel and i find it just gives you a better way of getting a nice tight wrap of the backing onto your reel now that i've got that through the stripper guide i can attach this to the reel and i'll show you how to do that here all right so now i've got the backing going through the stripper guide on my fly rod now it's time to actually make our knot we're going to use an arbor knot it's a very basic knot it's not designed to hold fish if you get to the point where all your fly line and backing is out and this is all that's going to stop it you just want to hold on tight and let the fish break off the mono otherwise you're going to lose your whole rig so very easy knot to do just going to make an overhand knot here at the very tip of the backing and you don't want this long tie again so i'm going to cut it just a few millimeters above that knot okay i'm going to wrap it around my spool here twice nice and easy and i've got the main stem of the backing and i've got my overhand knot the end of the backing what i'm going to do now is put those two together and make another overhand knot and just make sure that you catch the main stem of the backing inside that knot pull that tight and i basically have a slip knot now i'm just gonna you know move this back and forth and lock it down cinch it down and it'll hold on there nice and tight now we're ready to wind on our backing now i can also attach my spool here at this point just remember you want that backing coming off the spool in the directions appropriate for the hand that you like to reel with and i think you can see now how an open cage is really easy to do this with if it was a closed cage and i don't have that backing going through the opening of the closed cage well i'm going to have to start over all right so now it's time to actually spool up our backing now you can see i've got my backing going through the first stripper guide on my fly rod now going to my reel here i'm not using the last two sections of my fly rod just enough to get the stripper guide on there and i really like this because it lets me hold on to something a little bit more securely than just the reel while i'm trying to wind it also means that the backing is always coming from one direction down that stripper guide and the real key thing here is when we're winding on our backing we want some tension on it and we want it to go on evenly back and forth you really don't want to build up backing over itself in one spot it's going to slip and catch and you know if you're in a situation where you've got a fish of a lifetime you definitely don't want it to knot up inside the reel so when we're reeling this on i actually like to slide the backing under my butt where i'm sitting that actually provides the tension that line's then going to go up to the stripper guide and then to my reel and i find that works really well now this is a commercial spool of backing it's very rare that you would buy this unless you were a fly shop or i guess a very prolific guide normally you're going to have your backing on a spool that maybe the fly shop sent you you've asked them for a certain amount and i find that it's best to just then put that spool into a small box or a bowl or something so it can freely spin but it's not going to go all over your kitchen floor all right let's get reeling so very easy i'm just going to put some tension here with my finger and guide it back and forth left to right and i'm not going to make you watch me do the whole thing let's fast forward a bit we're going to talk about capacity next all right so we've got our backing on there we took our time you know don't rush it you got to be patient we've got it on there tight we've got it nice and flat it's not going up one side over another very important now before we go further i want to talk about capacity of your reels because this is a tricky thing even for us in the fly shop as experts because the fact of the matter is all sorts of reels from different manufacturers all have different capacities of how much backing they're going to put on we're using 20 pound dacron today but sometimes you might want to put 30 pound dacron or gel spun and those all take up different amounts of space on your reel based on how thick that actual backing is on top of that you know it all depends this is a 5 6 reel now if i was putting a five weight line on this reel it's going to take up less space than if i was going to put a six weight line on this reel so again i have to think of those things here's my rule of thumb just a rough guide first off most likely you're going to order backing from a fly shop or you're going to buy some in the store and take it home and wind it up yourself check the manufacturer's website for the reel that you bought see what capacity it suggests and then make sure that you have that much backing but expect to use less than what the manufacturer suggests the fact is for trout fishing you just don't need backing you're rarely ever going to get into it i've certainly never had a trout myself take 75 yards of backing off my reel that's what we have on here right now and honestly when you go a little bit less capacity that gives you more physical space for different fly lines what you don't want is your leader banging up against the top of this flyer reel every time you wind it you don't want your knots catching on here and wearing down it's better to have a little bit of extra space you know you're gonna have good capacity on there still to fight a fish and you're not gonna have any problems with knots okay so we're almost done with the backing but i just want to explain that the backing is your overflow i mean if a fish does happen to take all of your fly line away it's then going to go into the backing and this is what fills up the spool but also connects to the business end of the whole arrangement which is your fly line now most fly lines have a loop to loop connection nowadays we don't really use nail knots anymore to attach the backing to the end of the fly line you can still do that but honestly here in the shop we like to make hand-shaped loop-to-loop connections because then i can easily switch over to different fly lines for different purposes for example so first i'm going to do is show you how to put a loop in your backing now here in the fly shop when we rig up people's reels we actually do a bimini twist to create the loop here at the end of our backing but honestly it's overkill it's a bit more complicated than not you know maybe that'll be another subject for another video but i'm going to show you how to do a double surgeon's loop here it's very easy it's very simple you don't need the shock absorption for trout that a bimini twist knot provides and this is going to work just fine so very simply i'm going to take my backing and i'm going to double it back over the fly line backing here to make my loop the only trick is i want to make sure that that loop is big enough that it will clear the fly line spool i'm going to put through there and honestly you don't have to make this as tight as possible a longer loop is just fine now i'm going to take that loop i've got it doubled over i'm going to go back to where the tag end of my backing is and i'm simply going to hold everything nice and tight and together with both pieces of the fly line backing i'm going to do an overhand knot and then before i finish that i'm going to put the loop through again so basically a double overhand knot and there we go that's it very very simple that's a double surge i'm going to pull this nice and tight nice and smooth try to get it to go nice and even so those all line up beautifully and there we go so that now gives us a nice backing loop that's plenty strong okay so now we have our loop on our backing and now we've got our fly line here now most modern fly lines have a loop built in welded on the end that goes to your backing and in that case it's very easy i simply take my loop i pass it through the small loop on the fly line wrap it around the spool and pull tight and now i've got my loop to loop connection but we're going to go above and beyond today i'm going to show you let's say you've got a fly line that doesn't come from the manufacturer with a loop on the end or maybe the loop is damaged and you have to rebuild it this works both for the backing end as well as the leader end as well i'm going to show you how to make your own super strong loop that will hold no matter what all right so now i'm going to build a loop on the end of the fly line here i'm just going to talk about the tools you're going to need here you definitely want to have a nail knot tool these are easy to find they're affordable and they're very handy so make sure you pick up one of those and i'm just going to use a strong mono this is just a 12 pound mono this is what i'm going to use to create the nail knots that are going to hold my loop tight so make sure you have a strong model like that and all we're going to basically do is take the tip of our fly line here which has no loop we're gonna fold it over on itself and then we're gonna put a series of two nail knots one right next to the other over both sides of that loop and that's just gonna hold it down nice and tight so let's show you how that works so i've got my nail knot tool here ready holding my left hand i'm going to use this heavier green model only so that you can maybe see it on camera a little bit easier i'm going to lay it over the top of the nail nut tool like that and it goes in between these two teeth here at the end then i'm going to wrap it back towards my left hand i'm only going to do about six or seven wraps here nail nut tool you normally do more like nine or ten but we're going to do double knots so this is plenty so now that i've made those nice tight concentric wraps facing back to my hand i take the tag into the mono i go from the left through to the right so now it's all set up to tighten down this is where i'm going to take my fly line i'm going to pass it through that hole right alongside the mono this is tricky because we're doubling it up and it's going to be a little bit tight in there so just push it through if you've got extra fly line sticking out that's fine it's going to get cut off and this is what's going to determine the size of our loop that's about right now the trick to doing a nail nut properly is once you've got these wraps on here you're going to pinch them down nice and tight and you're going to squeeze as you slide the tool out now all i need to do is provide even pressure on both sides of the mono i'm not pulling on the fly line at all i'm just holding it steady with my fingers here i'm going to pull both sides of this mono nice and tight just to bring those those concentric knots tighter around the fly line now go slow any and eventually it'll just tighten up here a little bit there we go you can see it clearly i wouldn't normally open it up here but i want you guys to see what's going on now before you really cinch it down you can actually go in here and just make sure that they're all laying up next to each other nice and even and you can also straighten out the fly line that looks pretty good we can tighten that down nice and secure now the fact of the matter is one single nail knot like that will hold this loop pretty much against anything but to be safe i'm simply going to do the exact same thing you just saw right next to this nail knot and then that way it's going to be totally secure okay so there we go i've trimmed off all the extra mono it's sticking on i've trimmed off the fly line that was out below the nail knots that i've done nice and clean and so this is super strong in fact here i'll take my nail knot tool i'll just slide it in this loop here and you can see here i mean i can put quite a bit of force on that and it's not going anywhere so it's a very strong attachment now a lot of people would say we're good there but i still like to use something like a uv knot sense from loon this is basically like a uv hardening gel and i'm just going to put a little bit into those mono wraps on the nail knot and very importantly capping the bottom of the fly line that i cut you see when it gets wet water water's going to wick up that line and go through this is the part that goes to the backing it's not critical but i would certainly do this when i was building a loop at the other end of my fly line that i'm going to attach a leader to otherwise it's going to waterlog and it's going to sink on the water when you're fishing so just a little bit of uv not sense on there get it nice and smooth this will also make sure that this passes through your fly line guides really smoothly and easily if a fish does take you to your backing take my uv light and i'm just going to lock that down and you know now that i've got this loop we're going to do that loop to loop connection with my backing and then we're going to reel on the fly line that's next all right we're almost at the home stretch so now i've got my loop on the backing that we made earlier i've got the loop that i've just created on the end of my fly line i'm going to take the backing loop and i'm going to make sure it goes right through that small loop we've just created now i'm going to take that loop from the backing and i'm going to go over the whole spool of fly line and then when i pull this all through you can see there we've got a nice loop-to-loop connection now i'm just simply going to reel the fly line on this is where i can now take off these twist ties and then just wind the fly line on as normal you can still do the ball trick throw this in a bowl and let it unravel as you're winding it or prop it up with a pencil through the middle and a clamp or better yet get a friend to help you out okay so i'm gonna reel on my fly line now and make a notice that i'm not using a fly rod anymore to do this this part's much easier i still want to make sure the fly line goes on evenly but it's just not as critical especially if you left yourself that extra capacity that we suggested that you do one thing though you want to make sure the fly line's going on evenly and far as there's no twists i don't want coils or loops and that kind of stuff because honestly they'll make knots and birdness if you really let them always make sure your fly line is on a spool before you start reeling it onto reels and then make sure that when you're done with it if you want to change it out for a different line that you put it back onto a plastic spool nice and evenly there we go i'm just going to go back and forth again left to right just using my two fingers here to guide it and once we're done that's it you're ready to throw a leader on there and start fishing and there we go it's all done it's a thing of beauty it looks like a beautiful watermelon and not overcrowded we've still got lots of space to put on a leader and our tip it so that's the end result that we're hoping for hopefully you guys found this video very helpful and you can see that this is something you can absolutely do at home just given a little bit of time and patience but you certainly don't need any fancy equipment please do like and subscribe to our channel we would really appreciate that otherwise thanks so much for joining us we'll see you soon with more fly fishing how-to videos you

Channel: Bow River Troutfitters

Views: 74,914

Keywords: fly fishing, fly reels, how to, educational, diy, trout, flishing, bow river, calgary, yyc, canada, alberta, teaching

Id: 2vuZWFLt0Gg

Length: 15min 40sec (940 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 10 2022