It's cold. So cold....

I heard that chapsticking your guides prevents them from freezing. Legit?

Chapstick helps, but not much.

The only solution I've found to icy guides is to go the hell home.

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I was afraid of that.

I'm going to try and go to Pulaski this Friday. We'll see how that goes.

Dip it in the water, cast cast cast, then do it all over again.

Icy guides won't be your problem in pulaski. If you insist upon fly fishing, you're basically going to have to find a single run, strip enough line out, and make the same cast over and over again. Your guides will be frozen solid.

That's all fine.

But you're going to be making candles, and there is no fix for that. Every cast will result in a thicker layer of ice on your fly line. The only fix is to chew it off every few minutes.

Aerosol can of plane deicer?LOL

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hmm, i like the way you think...

or plane to gulf-
suggest you don't get brainstorm to have fly rod guide replaced with spinning guides-does effect the action,or so they say
oh well,it was only a St.Croix glass.

Been to the gulf, wasn't my cup of tea.

Chapstick or cooking spray just keeps the water from attaching to the eyes. It doesn't last long though, but is a temporary fix. Sometimes you just have to deal with it and break the ice off. JUST BE CAREFUL!!! I was stretching to clear the ice off the tip top of my 9ft rod and broke about 2 inches off a few years back.

Wsender,

Stop by Melindas fly shop in Altmar. She has some stuff made by Loon Outdoors that helps with icy guides. It doesn't prevent ice but it helps to remove it easier from your guides.

has anyone tried putting rain-x on their guides?

Never heard of the rain-x trick, but i have been using this all weather wax stuff from REI into which i mix a tsp or so of Japanese bamboo salt (super fine, non-corrosive). works ok for a bit, but like every other trick ice eventually begins candling onto the guides.

Midnight. I have used rainX. If you put a few applications on I don't think it necessarily keeps them from icing up but I do think it made it easier to break the ice off.... I don't think anything really keeps them from icing up when it is all said and done.

I used rain-x for the first time this week. it worked the best of anything else I tried.
One thing I found is that taking the time to clean your rod and guides of dirt and lime scale (look carefully, you'll see it) before going out and prior to adding rain-x, helps.
Rain-x wears off like all the rest though, but seemed to last longer and you don't have the mess of waxy/oil-like substances.