For no special reason, some fly lines don’t come with factory loops. Why is that so? Honestly spoken I don’t have a clue about this. I’m pretty sure they could put loops on them that do the job. But ok, they don’t do, so we have to find a way to prepare our fly lines for the battle. Here comes my solution that might be interesting to share with you.
Welding fly lines became very popular but let me say, I don’t like it. You can do so many things wrong and it doesn’t work for all fly lines. Fly lines made out of PVC can be welded only once, after that it gets hard and won’t perform very well.
I welded some shooting heads and at the first glance it looked good but i was never 100% sure that it really worked and is ready to stand a strengh test. Especially for some really tough lines like the RIO Leviathan lines that should stand 70lbs.
Ok lets come to my solution.
I form a loop of lets say 4cm, can be also just 2 or 3cm, depending on the strengh the line should stand. For GTs I went to even a little bit more but for my pike fly shooting heads just 3cm also do the trick. Then I’m taking a standard fly tying thread such as 140 or even 210 denier, with a bobbin and tye down the loop on 2/3 of its length. Similar to finishing a fly I finish the wrappings, like a whip finisher.
Now you do have a made a loop on the fly line. To finish it and also make it durable you have to put some Aquasure on it. That will secure the wrappings and give it a very flexible behavior.
Done!