TAPERED LEADERS

[VINNYT]

What is the use of tapered leaders why cant you just use strait line i was told when fly fishing for panfish just use 10 pound regular fishing line?

thanks

 

[JackM]

If you have a heavy fly on, you may be able to use a level leader. With light flies, the energy will not be able to transfer fully to the fly and the leader will not unfold entirely. What the taper does is slow down the dissipation of energy, conserving enough to completely unfold the leader in the forecast

 

[Padraic]

JackM wrote:
If you have a heavy fly on, you may be able to use a level leader. With light flies, the energy will not be able to transfer fully to the fly and the leader will not unfold entirely. What the taper does is slow down the dissipation of energy, conserving enough to completely unfold the leader in the forecast

To get a good idea of what jack is saying, take the leader off your flyline. Then try casting. The flyline will literally bounce back at you. A flyline transfers the energy of the cast, and it is designed to lose as little as possible as it unfurls.

A tapered leader is designed to disapate all that energy, so the leader lands with a bit of slack in it and the fly touches down softly.

You can use a straight piece of mono, but you're going to have to be a good caster to manage it. You'll also need to experiment to see what length/weight will work. So you may find this frustrating. Or perhaps you'll take to it like a duck to water and wonder what all the fussin' was about. Experiment, by all means!

Mono for spinning/casting rods is a greater diameter per pound test than tippet sold for flyfishing. This will affect how well a dry fly is presented, since a heavier diameter tippet can affect drag.

The one place where you may find that a straight piece of mono is not a great hinderance is streamer fishing. Particularly if you are using a sink tip line. Larger flies are harder to turn over in any case, so the heavy mono may help.

 

[VINNYT]

Thank alot for the help i will definatly try it out because when im practicing usually i just use fly line and no leader also i was reading that when streamer fishing he just used 10 pound strait fireline.

thanks

 

[Padraic]

Fireline is a low diameter monofilament. That may be helpful if you pursue this idea.

 

[VINNYT]

I dident know it was mono can you just tie it strait to your lure or fly?

thanks

 

[VINNYT]

also i did try the strait line and it worked fine exept you cant nail knot it to your fly line it cuts into it.