Leaders, whos making them vs just buying tapered?

[Heritage-Angler]

bigslackwater - Just some things I forgot to mention....

Before you start fishing with that Uni-Body leader, ya gotta give it a real good stretching - especially the Maxima. Hold as much as you can between your outstretched arms, and stretch it hard, while counting to ten. You should do this every time you string up your rod to fish.

The formula I posted is good for 4 to 7wt lines. Anything lighter, and you might want to sub .017 Maxima for the .020 in the butt section. For 8wt and above, use 3 1/2' of .024, 6" of .017, and 1' of .013 to make the leader body.

On the UV Knot Sense on the knots - yeah, it works, but it isn't all that durable. Over time, it gets cloudy looking, and eventually breaks off. Simple enough to re-apply though....

One of the good things about this leader is it's versatility. You really don't need to ever remove the leader from your line, so you can just nail knot the butt right to your fly line. This eliminates that nasty big perfection loop knot that can get hung up in the guides.

Another thing some folks do is to nail knot the butt to your fly line, and if you want to change leaders, just cut it off a foot or two from the nail knot, and blood knot another leader to it. This also gets rid of that perfection loop "lump", and you can change leaders quite a bit before you use up the nail knotted section.

If you have a loop in the end of your fly line, you can attach leaders by tying a 3 turn clinch knot with the butt section right to the line loop. This works surprisingly well, as long as you're careful when you clip it off when you change leaders. This connection slides through the guides much easier than the loop to loop connections...

Good luck with your "experiment".

H.A.

 

[bigslackwater]

Good info H.A... I'm not a big fan of perfection loops or loop to loop. I like my lines to be as "Seamless" as possible. I figure that if I use a nail knot tool, I can tie it just as fast as making a loop to loop connection or perfection loop connection.... Blood knots are the most time consuming for me.

 

[Heritage-Angler]

While you're experimenting, wanna try something really cool?

Take your unattached leader and coil it up like a store bought one - pinch the tippet, and wrap it around your fingers, and then spiral wrap the very end around the hoop 4 or 5 times.

Drop this coil in a pan of boiling water and boil it for 5 minutes. Take it out with a fork, uncoil it, and immediately give it a good stretching. This takes all the memory out of the stiffer material - it feels almost rubbery at first. Then attach to your fly line, and reel it in.

This little trick brings old leader butts back to life, and doesn't harm them at all. This works on any mono or fluorocarbon leader. The effect lasts for a week or so, and the leaders really cast great! I commonly do this before a long fishing trip, and I don't have to fight the memory in the leaders much at all.

This trick really makes Harvey style leaders work fantastic - they're nice and supple after doing this.

 

[NickR]

I would be surprised if it wasn't mentioned already but part of tying leaders that I hate is tying a nail knot to my fly line. I usually use a a loop to loop connection. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I end up just stripping the tip of my fly line and the knot slips.

 

[pcray1231]

Nail knot slips? Wow, I can say I've never had that happen. Nor have I slipped the cover off of a fly line if that's what you were referring to.

They are a pain in the rear end to tie, I agree. My trouble is simply holding the loops in place when you try to fish the tag through. Stiff maxima, so they want to spring out and make you start over. Once that tag end is through, through, and I start to tighten, I'm golden.

I'd not want to do it on stream. But I typically just do it once per year for each outfit. Nail knot a nice long butt section on. When I change leaders, I do it at the first knot down, not at the nail knot. So all of my leaders share a common "butt".

As long as it's just the one knot per year, I like it better than loop to loop.

 

[NickR]

PCRAY,

I guess your just that good man! I have had it happen a few times even when it is tied properly so I avoid tying the dreaded nail knot and just use the loop to loop connection. I remember streamer fishing once and I had a pretty heavy leader and I got caught in a tree with the streamer. I pointed my rod at the fly and pulled trying to snap the line but my line did not snap and my nail knot failed. It stripped the cover off of my fly line.


I think I am going to try experimenting with an Albright knot. Can anybody provide an feedback as to how it stacks up against a nail knot?

 

[pcray1231]

That doesn't seem, at least to me, to speak to the quality of the knot. It's not that I'm making a better knot than you. Your knot didn't fail. Your fly line underneath did. Knot is still perfectly fine tightened around a fly line cover. Right?

My guess is one of two things.

1. Speaks to the quality or condition of the fly line itself. i.e. your fly line cover may be weaker than mine. or

2. Your using smaller diameter butt material, thus rather than tightening around the fly line, you're actually cutting it.

Either way, something can be learned here. I've used various Rio lines as well as Orvis Wonderline with no issues. I cut the loop off first. I generally try to make my butt material about 2/3 the diameter of the fly line, which ranges from 0.018 up to 0.022 or so.

 

[FrequentTyer]

I've come to realize that the only thing more enjoyable than a good leader thread is a good "which vise is better" thread. The leader and connection method that works for you is the best one...for you.
I have mentioned Joseph Kissane's book "Drag-Free Drift" before, and I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to better understand leaders in all shapes and sizes. He makes a statement at the beginning of the book that had really stuck with me. It was something along the lies of, we spend thousands of dollars on rods, reels, and lines, agonize over the choice of fly down the smallest detail, and then make the most critical connection between those two parts with little thought and as inexpensively as possible.
I'm a hand tied leader fan, and I forced myself to learn to tie bloodknots without a tool so I can modify as needed on the stream. I've tried furled, braided, and extruded leaders, and for various reasons I like hand tied best. But I wouldn't know that if I didn't experiment. That is what I think everyone should do. Try them all and find out what works best for you.