The Background: Back in 2014 the website Troutster.Com completed a thorough appraisal of the, then, leading fly floatants and desiccants. It found that the powder fly floatants were far better when it came to keeping your fly on top of the water and that of those, the Shimazaki was the best. The gels fared less well, but they sited that for the ease of application on the water, they too had a valid place in every tackle box.
Now that Fulling Mill has launched its own Dry Sauce and High Glide, we wanted to repeat the main test to see where our products sit in the grand scale of things.
So we ordered up 14 of the leading products before adding in our own Dry Sauce and High Glide and got the testing underway.
Aim:
- To see where the NEW Fulling Mill Dry Sauce and Fulling Mill High Glide rank amongst existing leading fly floatants and desiccants.
Method:
- Take a freshly filled pint glass for each test.
- Rig up X number of FM 2.0mm Orange Painted Brass Beads on FM Xtra 4x Copolymer.
- Take 1x Unused FM Parachute Adams S12 (181312) for each test.
- Apply floatant as per the manufacturer’s instructions.
- Suspend the pre-rigged Copolymer from the hook and lower gently into the water.
- Monitor the fly for one minute. If still floating after one minute, remove, dry, re-apply floatant, add weight and repeat.
- Report the last weight to be successfully held by the floating fly for a complete minute in the test results.
It should be made clear that this test was carried by a full time member of Fulling Mill staff and that Fulling Mill is the sole UK distributor of Tiemco Products within the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.
The Findings:
As we have made clear above, this test was carried out by our own staff and only concentrated on what we felt to be the main requirement of a floatant and dessiccant – its ability to keep a fly on top of the water.
We elected to leave the more in depth appraisals to independent testers for what we hope are obvious reasons but would be glad to provide samples to anyone wishing to carry out such tests.
Of the seven GELS tested, the CDC Gel by Veniards (£5.30) came out top, supporting 29x 2.0mm Painted Brass Beads for a full minute without sinking.
Next came Loon Aquel (£5.99) followed by our own FM Dry Sauce (£6.50) in joint third along with TMC Dry Magic (£8.96) and Loon Lochsa. (£7.99)
Of the nine POWDERS tested, in joint first place supporting 36 beads (twice that of the control fly, to which no floatant was applied) for a whole minute was our own FM High Glide (£6.50) and the Shimazaki Dry Shake Dun (£8.46.)
This is clearly a fantastic result, all due to the efforts of our development team who have worked hard with our partners in America to bring you this product at this fantastic price.
The Fm High Glide is easy to use, simply drop your fly into the top, close, shake well and the water soluble powder will absorb excess water and apply floatant to keep your fly floating better, higher and longer.
One of the advantages of the The TMC Dry Dun is that it has a clever cap design into which you can hook smaller flies making it easier to retrieve your fly post application.
Conclusion:
From our initial test, we agree with the team at Troutster.com in that it would appear that the Powders are far better when it comes to keeping your fly on top of the water than the gels and that amongst them, there isn’t much in it, only a difference of 3 beads for the top six performers. For the gels, the difference is again limited to just 4 beads for all seven brands tested.
What we can be sure of though is that in terms of value for money and performance, the NEW Fulling Mill High Glide and Dry Sauce are both more than able to keep up with and in some cases out strip the competition. A most pleasing result.
The full set of fly floatants results can be seen below along with further images of the test in action.
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