A-swiveling we will go

For many years, when dry fly fishing, I was bothered by the twists and kinks that would appear in my leader tippet after an hour or so of casting.

Al McClane, the long-time fishing editor of Field & Stream Magazine, once wrote, “Trout are not used to seeing their food arrive attached to a bedspring.” He urged his readers to straighten their leaders prior to fishing. Excellent advice.

Barb and I pull our leaders through a small piece of dampened chamois several times before tying a fly on. This straightens out the leader quite nicely.

I have some 60 of McClane’s columns that I’ve clipped out and saved. When I reread them I find his advice to be right on the money, despite the fact that they were first printed 30 to 50 years ago. In fact, after McClane’s death, three books have been published containing articles and columns that he wrote. They are all timeless. The titles are “Fishing With McClane,” edited by George Reiger; “The Complete McClane,” compiled by John Merwin; and “McClane’s Angling World,” published by E. P. Dutton.

The fellow on the cover of the last mentioned book, pictured fishing the Kellam’s Bridge Pool on the Upper Delaware, is none other than Mr. Ed Van Put. Yes, I know, the fellow pictured is casting left-handed, and Van Put is right-handed. Some time ago, Ed told me that when they printed the cover they reversed the print, turning him into a southpaw.

Despite following McClane’s advice, after some hours of casting, our tippets always seemed to develop a series of odd zig-zags and little twists that were not originally there. They had the appearance of something the cat might have dragged in. I once mentioned this problem to Arnold Gingrich while attending a Theodore Gordon Flyfishers outing at Henryville. Mr. Gingrich suggested shortening the tippet from about 30 inches to six inches. Well, maybe that would work, but it seemed to defeat the purpose of using a light tippet in the first place.

Sometime in the early 1970s, an article appeared in The Flyfisher, the publication of the Federation of Fly Fishers. In order to avoid the twists and kinks, the author suggested, after threading the fly onto the tippet, one should take a lit cigarette and touch it to the end of the tippet, which would melt the end of the tippet into a small ball. Thus, the ball would hold the fly on the tippet but would allow the fly to rotate freely on the axis of the tippet. This, the author stated, would prevent any twisting or kinking of the tippet.

Although I smoked a pipe, on my next trip to the stream I sallied forth, armed with a pack of cigarettes and the instructions for their use memorized. Alas, either I had purchased the wrong brand of cigarettes or was using an incorrect type of tippet material, or I simply lacked the skill of the author. My scorched fingertips suggested the latter.

One fine day the answer came to me, a blowin’ in the wind. It had been staring me in the face for years.

I use a double-surgeons knot to tie my tippet onto my leader. That knot makes a small roundish bump when tied. BINGO! To keep your tippet free of the slightest sign of twisting or curlicues, simply follow these instructions:

• Slide the fly onto the tippet.

• Using a second, short piece of leader material two or three thousandths heavier than the tippet, tie a double-surgeons knot.

• Clip the three ends carefully so as not to cut the tippet. Your fly is now secure on the tippet but can rotate freely on the axis of the tippet. This minor tactic will allow you to even fish an oversized fly on a light tippet without the slightest hint of kinks or twisting.

A word of caution: Be sure the bump formed by the knot is large enough that a strong pull by an 18-inch trout will not pull it through the eye of the hook.

In the 1997 Human Kinetics edition of Art Lee’s book, “Fishing Dry Flies for Trout on Rivers & Streams,” Mr. Lee diagrams this knot on page 249. He refers to it as “The Fullerton Surgeons Swivel.”

Ah yes, but fame is fleeting.