Leaders, whos making them vs just buying tapered?

[pcray1231]

That's the beauty of tying leaders. You don't have to throw them away when they've been altered, cause you can alter them right back.

 

[shortrod]

I am with pcray on this. I often have the butt section of my leaders live as long as the line. And I had one line last for over 10 years.

Also I only use 2 leaders types: Pcray's #1 and #2.
My #1 brookie leader is just a scaled down version of the #2 dry fly leader.

One way I make this system work is I have two spools for each line wt , one spool has the short leader and another has the long leader.

 

[NickR]

My wasteful rear end is being brought to the realization that I should probably stop throwing leaders away! Just think of the money I could save with a little extra time to care for my leaders! Lol!

 

[steve2u42]

What I do is when my dry hand tied leaders gets abused i make it into a wet fly leader. Then to a nymphing leader then to a streamer leader. Recycling.
its quick, simple and little thought.

 

[afishinado]

I've posted at length about the furled mono leaders I make. Like Pcray. Shortrod and Steve said, leaders last a long time - a season or even seasons.

I also have 3 or 4 different versions I make for different rods and fishing situations. Making your own leaders takes very little time, and tinkering with them is fun.

 

[OldLefty]

I've been tying my own leaders since...it's been soo long I forgot ;-)

I use both hand-tied leaders and store-bought knotless leaders.

I always alter the store-bought leaders before I use them. Many folks don't know that the length of tippet on a knotless leader varies depending on length of leader. If I buy a 7.5' leader the tippet may be only 12" long. I'll cut the leadeer back about 6" and then add a tippet 1 to 2 X numbers smaller than the tippet listed on the leader when purchased. For example, if I purchase a 3X 7.5' leader I cut back to 7.0' and add a 4X or 5X tippet of approximately 3' in length. For a store-bought knotless leader of 9' length the tippet on this leader may be only 18". I alter these leaders because I want a much longer tippet. Sometimes I may use a 4' or longer tippet to allow for more slack (squigglies) from the fly back a ways.

As for hand-tied leaders, I still use the 60-20-20 formula which I may vary at times. This formula has 60% butt section, 20% mid-section and 20% tip section.

A rule of thumb is to begin the butt section with a diameter roughly 2/3 that of the fly line. Based on my experience, most trout lines are .031 to.033 diameter. A butt section beginning with .021, give or take a few thousands, would be appropriate. This provides good transfer of energy from fly line to leader.

For matching tippet size to fly, I use the rule of 3. Take the size of fly and divide by 3 to arrive at an acceptable tippet size. For example, size 16 divided by 3 gives 5 plus. 5X or 6X would be acceptable here.

 

[OldLefty]

One more point I'd like to add. George Harvey shocked the fly fishing (and leader tying) world when he announced he had also used soft material for butt sections in his leaders. If I recall correctly, he broke this news in an article in FLY FISHERMAN magazine several years back.

I use soft material for my butt sections. Large diameter mono may be softer or stiffer, depending on the make-up of the material; however, it is never really soft.

Just my .02 cents.

 

[NickR]

I guess I kind of lied earlier... I always alter my store bought leaders. I usually buy 3x leaders and cut them back and add in tippet sections.

I also found a leader that I like to tie in George Daniel's Dynamic nymphing that I like to use. I like a built in sighter with a long tippet for deep and fast water.

I guess I feel like once the leader is altered beyond me actually knowing the diameter of the line I am fishing with I usually just toss it. Don't some guys use micrometers to assess line diameter?

I am by no means the greatest caster but I have been fly fishing for 25 years and can hold my own. I do from time to time when trying to make too tight of casts with hand tied leaders end up getting my fly caught on the leader knots regardless of how small they are. This happens much less for me with knotless tapered leaders.

 

[pcray1231]

Tailing loop. I think we all do that on occasion. Except maybe Old Lefty....

 

[Heritage-Angler]

NickR wrote:
Don't some guys use micrometers to assess line diameter?

Guilty as charged, but only when tying leaders at my bench. I carry one of these things in my vest, and one in my gear bag. With as many modifications as I do to my leaders when fishing, it's really nice to know exactly what size tippet I'm dealing with.

Definitely not a necessity, but it's my second favorite FF gadget.

 

[OldLefty]

I confess to throwing tailing loops now and then...just need to get rid of that abrupt application of power. Wind knots, caused by throwing those blasted tailing loops, mess up leaders a bunch.

 

[bigslackwater]

This thread has me interested in tying my own leaders. I've been looking up leader formulas and I have to wonder if tying them with 8 or 9 sections is overkill? It seems to me, and excuse my ignorance, that the benefits of having less knots and fewer sections, but a more staggered taper would be greater than a more gradual tapper with many knots...example: Instead of tapering down 1x,2x,3x,4x,5x in short sections, why not go twice as long with 1x, 3x, to 5x. Is a more gradual taper with more knots better? I ask because it seems like more knots would cause more spray, be more visible to the fish, create a better chance of knots and hang ups, plus more weak points and a greater chance of breaking. I can recall on one occasion where a fish came up and bit a nail knot that I thought was trimmed nicely and unnoticeable in the water. Just curious of your thoughts on this.

 

[shortrod]

 

[pcray1231]

I do have leader spray issues sometimes, either knotted or unknotted. I can't say for sure which is worse but if someone tested it I wouldn't be surprised if knotted leaders are a little worse. But it's not like you can escape the problem.

When dry fly fishing, I just try to make my first false cast or two in a different direction than the fish.

For everything else, shortrod is SPOT on. To repeat.

Yeah, you can probably double up a section here and there, but you can't overdo it, and is one knot really making that much of a difference?

In my experiences, fish are drag shy, not line shy. Sure, they can see the knot. They can see 9x flouro too, don't kid yourself. But if there were no drag, I think they'd hit a fly attached to a freakin rope.

Wind knots, for me, are less of a problem with my own leaders. Fly hangs up on knot, rather than slide the whole way down and knot.

Never had a leader knot break. Tippet knots, yes. Even if a leader knot is a weak point, it's not weaker than the tippet or tippet knots.

 

[Heritage-Angler]

bigslackwater wrote:
I've been looking up leader formulas and I have to wonder if tying them with 8 or 9 sections is overkill?

You wouldn't be the first to wonder about this.

In Gary Borger's book "Presentation", he talks about a simple leader formula he came up with to immitate the performance of George Harvey's slack line leader. He calls it the "Uni-Body" leader. It has a butt section of 4' of .020 Maxima Chameleon, and a mid section of 1' of .013 Maxima Chameleon.

While it doesn't perform exactly like Harvey's formulas, it does a pretty good job. It's easy to adapt it to a lot of fishing situations, and IMO, this makes it superior to knotless leaders. With only a few sections, you know exactly what diameters you're dealing with, and where to make the modifications. The materials used, and the knots used to connect them are important to this design.

Gary uses a 5/7 turn blood knot, to allow the knot to hold with the drastic jump in material sizes - 5 turns of the heavier material, and 7 turns of the lighter material. Once you get down to tippet size material, a double or triple surgeons knot works well, without resulting in a large size knot.

Here's some versions of the Uni-Body leader that have worked well for me:

Nymphing leader-

4' of .020 Maxima Chameleon blood knotted to
1' of .013 Maxima Chameleon blood knotted to
4' of 2X triple surgeons knotted to
1' of 4X

To modify this for fishing dry flies, just add 2' of 5X or 6X.

For fishing streamers, just cut back to the 2X.

You can fish this leader for a long time before you have to replace the 2X, and even longer before the .013 needs to be replaced. It's a simple design, and only requires 2 spools of non-tippet material.

Simple, cheap, and versatile. YMMV...

 

[barbless]

I've been doing a little experimenting with pre-tied leaders and one of those Fishpond leader gauges (truly a gadget worth having, by the way.

Whenever I fish limestone spring creeks like the LeTort, I always notice my leader knots collecting little bits of vegetation and adding drag. So I've taken to using pre-tied leaders attached to a length of . 017 leader butt- that way the only knot is at that connection (smoothed out with Pliobond), plus a knot for adding more tippet if necessary.

I never paid much attention to which brand of pre-tied I was picking up, and I've had varying degrees of success with the casting quality.

I think I just figured out why.

The other night, I measured three different brands of 9' 3X leader that I happened to have on hand- Cortland Precision, Orvis Superstrong, and Rio Powerflex.

Only the Rio Powerflex came close to being an acceptable design.

45" of the Cortland leader measured .017 or less. The drop from .017 to .011 was less than 8". 28 inches was 3X tippet.

48" of the Orvis leader measured .017 or less. I only have the leader butt left, I threw the rest away. But the drop from .017 to .011 was also less than one foot.

68" of the Rio leader measured .017 or less. The section between .017 and .011 measured 26". The 3X tippet portion was 16".

All three leaders had butt sections that started with least .021 diameter mono, which is too large to connect to a line weight smaller than 7, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[trike23]

Hand tied is fine 90% of time. A nice smooth knotless store bought sure is nice on the letort and other spring creeks. Just like the way they slide through the grass and junk. Way less hassle IMHO.

 

[DJBerg]

Thanks guys I've been buying spools of line once in a while when I find free money. Soon enough I'm gonna start tying them together and see how it works out!

 

[bigslackwater]

Well, I started tying my own leaders, thanks to this thread! I tied up Heritage Anagler's suggested Unibody leader and some of the Harvey leader formulas I found online. I will compare the the unibody to a similar harvey leader. Blood knots on the chameleon line seem huge, but I can see how this line might roll over better than tapered leader. I've only ever used cheap cortland leaders from walmart and some scientific angler leaders so I'm sure that they wont be tough to beat!

I plan to use Loon Knot Sense to coat my knots. Anyone else do this? I've used it on the connection between the line and leader (nail knot) and it works wonders...far less hang ups on the tip top of the rod.

 

[pcray1231]

You can use mono meant for spin fishing, but be sure to mic it, don't trust the box. On standard mono's the tolerances are pretty large and the dia. listed should be viewed as a "minimum", most of the time when you measure it will be significantly larger.

In the long run, using standard mono for the tippet sections may save you money. These are sections that get used and abused, replaced, etc. But that's no different than changing tippet on store bought tapered leaders. For the main body of the leader, the part that's replacing the store bought stuff, it's really cheap and it lasts a long time. Just get the good stuff, on the small spools meant for fly fishing. I use Maxima Chameleon. I bought 7 or 8 spools in different diameters for like $30. That was over 10 years ago, and this year, I finally had to replace 1 of those spools.