Smart Spooler

As every saltwater fly angler knows, dirty lines, salt build up and memory are the detriment to a good cast and a prolonged life of a fly line. Simply rinsing the reel in freshwater after a good, productive trip just isn't sufficient enough. There has been a lack of tools produced to help the modern fly fisherman strip and clean lines simply and quickly, until now. Enter the Smart Spooler from former Seychelles fly fishing guide, Roland Henrion.

The Smart Spooler is a quick and easy method of removing a whole fly line and backing from a reel, washing it and then replacing it back onto the reel. This can either be done manually (using the provided handle and desk grips) or through the use of an electrical drill. By far the quickest way to use the Smart Spooler is through the use of a drill. The line is quickly stripped from the reel and is levelled out on the provided Smart Spooler spool. We tested it with 100ft fly line and 230 yards of 20lb braided backing, the Smart Spooler performed admirably, removing the entire fly line and backing in around 3 minutes on a medium drill setting, much faster than the old methods. The Smart Spooler also comes with a rubber grip which attaches to over 85% of current fly reel spools (a list of fly reels can be found on smartfisher.com). This fits an electric drill and provides a great way of re-spooling fly reels.

Manually the Smart Spooler performs equally well. Whilst on field testing in the Orkney Islands, after a hard days fishing for sea trout in the many sandy bays that litter the islands, the Smart Spooler was deployed to clean all the fly lines used during the day. It took us little more than 10 minutes after the trip to strip the three lines (manually) ready for cleaning. A further 10 minutes was used re-spooling ready for the next days fishing. You immediately notice the difference, fly lines feel slick and supple like the day they where brought.

The Smart Spooler also offers an excellent, memory free way of storing fly lines. Extra spools can be purchased so that you can store multiple lines. This is particularly useful if you use many different lines in a season and from a cost point. With good saltwater reels costing upwards of £250 and spare reel spools a little over half that the Smart Spooler is a much more cost effective way of storing large amounts of lines, which can be quickly deployed (including backing) onto the reel for use. Each Smart Spooler spool can hold 2 fly lines + 100 yards of backing or 1 fly line plus 400 yards of backing.

Not only does the Smart Spooler work with Fly Lines, but is effective with standard monofilament and braided lines also. This is effective when using multipliers or fixed spool reels in saltwater. You can strip anything from a Abu 6500 to Abu 9000 in about 5 to 8 minutes (manually) and thoroughly clean the line in a bucket with ease. Although we haven't tried it with larger boat reels, I would imagine it would cope adequately with anything you are likely to use in the UK and abroad except for the bigger deep sea and big game reels.

The Smart Spooler is made of a tough construction, produced from fibre-glass reinforced plastic, high quality rubber and stainless steel. We tested it for a month and there is little more than a scratch on our testing model. It's been dropped, stood on and it even rolled down a flight of concrete steps (don't ask!).

Although some might argue the Smart Spooler is an expensive gadget which you can easily do without, once you've had one and tried it, you'll have to be really stubborn to go back to the old methods of line care and re-spooling. Sure you could buy another fly line for the price of the Smart Spooler, but, with the Smart Spooler those lines would last at least twice as long as they do now. Plus each time you use the fly line after it has been cleaned and looked after correctly it will feel like new anyway! If you're heavily into Saltwater fly fishing, this is a must have gadget. The less time spent re-spooling and cleaning your equipment, equals, more time fishing, and what could be better than that!

The Smart Spooler is available from smartfisher.com priced in Europe £46.60 (UK £31.36 approx) and in the U.S. $48.95.