IL Duce! The Leader
So you’re on stream and getting ready to make that perfect cast 50 feet across a creek with a couple of currents between you and that sipping brownie. You’re looking good in your new Simms waders, that new Sage sure can cast, and you’re reasonably positive your fly is the one. You’ve practiced your casting in the backyard as your neighbors wonder why your lawn needs mowed. Everything’s a go. Just one more thing to check before you let sweet success wash over your soon-to-be trout-holding hands, that long line connecting your new $65 fly line and your #24 Trico, your leader, the crucial connection between you and Mr. Trout.
You look at your store bought leader and one question revolves round and round your hunter/gatherer cortex: “Will my leader get the job done?” If that nice trout is tucked under a rock ledge or an overhanging floral entrapment, the answer is probably not! If it’s a picky, spoiled lunker on the Letort or Spring Creek then the answer is definitely not! Why, you may ask yourself? I spent good money on this thing, you’re thinking. And everyone knows you gotta spend money to “truly” enjoy fly fishing! Right? Uh, no, and here’s why.
Most store bought leaders lack a key casting ingredient – versatility. In other words can you quickly and efficiently adapt your leader to the conditions at hand? Can you stiffen it up to punch it underneath an obstruction, or can you lengthen a portion of it to make it more supple, resulting in those silky, undulating “S” curves that can make the difference between success and muttering to yourself, “Damn leader!” or even worse, “Where in the hell is my spinning rod?!” The difference between using the wrong leader and using the right one is the difference between watching that trout stay in the water and looking at him eye-to-eye!
We’ve all had those moments, admit it. You’d like your leader to be stiffer, a little longer in the mid-section, or longer and limper at the end. In short you need a better mousetrap. Here’s the argument why you should consider building your own leaders: hand tied leaders offer superior performance and value over most conventional, commercially produced leaders for a number or reasons: performance, adaptability, and price. Sure, tons of folks do just fine with their store purchases but in the end they’re wasting money and limiting their success so some degree.
Don’t get me wrong, a number of manufacturers, notably Frog’s Hair with their George Harvey formulas, have dramatically improved their leader line-ups to cover every distance and most situations. And believe me, all those manufacturers see dollar signs every time you break off that $5 leader and tie on a brand new one. Cha-ching! So let’s discuss the advantages of gettin’ down and dirty with the thrifty and flexible world of your new obsession: leader tying. Just think of it as another step in your evolution as a flyfisherman or what your significant other might sees as just another excuse to avoid the chores.
First off the paramount benefit of a hand-tied leader is performance; they simply get the job done better than that extruded model in the fancy package. Remember, that hog of a Loch Leven brute mentioned earlier is still waiting for your #24 Trico to land perfectly in his impossibly, difficult feeding lane. Your initial considerations are two: is my leader stiff enough in the butt section to put the fly where it needs to go, and will Mr. Trico land with enough drag-free conviction to ensure the proper float?
Many store bought leaders lack a sufficiently stiff butt section to allow them to turnover properly in most conditions, especially if the wind is up and howling. As you watch your leader continually collapse short of its intended destination, your confidence is also collapsing. Not good. On the flip side, other manufactured leaders are too stiff and heavy: you need a longer leader just to turn the damn thing over. Finally, that store leader may be designed to straighten out; definitely the wrong tool when what we need is a nice, flexible combination of a “stiff-enough” butt and a soft, flexible tippet to give us S-curve nirvana.
When I’ve watched my neophyte buddies try to force a fly to a particular spot and wind up frustrated, the first thing I examine (beyond their casting ability) is their leader. Too soft? Too short, perhaps? Tippet shortened by continued tying-on of new flies? Sometimes their dilemma is compounded by the blasphemous sight of a loop-to-loop connection; you know the one, that hideous, hanging, monstrosity foisted upon beginners and the competent alike by the “simplicity” advocates! But, we’ll leave that for another time. So what is the problem with our struggling buddy downstream?
He’s probably using a “normal” leader and he’s probably down to a short, much too heavy, tippet. He might have begun the day with a 9’ 5X beauty, but he’s now fruitlessly casting a 6’ 2X rope. And by the way, just how-in-the-hell is he threading that rope through a #20eyelet? Hmm. With a store bought leader he’s got two options: tie on a brand new leader (Cha-ching!), while swearin’ an strugglin’ with the nail knot, or tie on a new tippet section, and gaze confusingly at the very apparent lack of smoothness and taper from that 2X coil to the sinuous and delicate 6X tippet. And remember, he’s probably using a surgeon’s knot, so there’s a nice, ungodly “kink” in the connection. He’s got problems and doubly bad, his difficulties are also yours since A, you’ve gotta help him out because he’s your ride home, B, you can’t get back to your own trout drama until his dilemma is resolved, and C, if he keeps burning through leaders, he may not have enough cash to buy the beer that evening, a frightening option, very wrong on a number of levels.
But if your college-carousing amigo had just spent an hour or so on a dreary February evening after recovering from the Steeler’s Super Bowl victory, tying up his own leaders, all the above concerns will have been moot. And this is the beauty of doing it yourself. You become a more self-sufficient, adaptable angler, and save some money. All it takes is a little time and practice. The fly fisher who continually experiments is always one step ahead of the competition. He’s capable, he’s “getting” it, and he’s not wasting your time asking you to nail knot another $5 to the end of his line.
The key to successful self-constructed leaders is knowing your knots, especially the neatly, compact blood knot, having some building formulas to reference, and obtaining the proper materials to produce a variety of leaders suited to any number of fishing situations: high stick nymphing, mellow wet-fly slinging, streamer tossing, or my personal favorite: elegant dry fly casting. As far as choosing materials, this is a personal decision. I’ve had bad batches of both Umpqua and Orvis, but also good ones. I’ve always been a Rio Powerstretch user, but also have had good results with Frog’s Hair and Dai-Riki. As far as the butt material goes, Maxima just can’t be beat and it doesn’t matter if it’s brown or clear; the trout are seeing it any way.
When I first became addicted to the sport I didn’t have much money to waste on ten or so leaders to cram into my fishing vest. Come to think of it, I still find myself a little light in the wallet on occasion. After some reading I came across my panacea: I’ll just tie my own leaders!! I’ve never looked back. I initially bought a leader tying kit from www.flyfishersparadise.com a product now running about $33 bucks in their current catalog. The kit contains Maxima butt material and Climax tippet spools along with a nice instruction booklet. Remember, if you buy it at the store in State College you can be testing your new purchase on fabled Spring Creek since its only minutes from the store. So for an easy-to-swallow initial investment I now have enough hand-tied leaders to cover any angling situation, and all the money I’ve saved over the years has been better spent on beer, fly rods, and gas money for the Jeep.
Initially, I spent the first evening bitching and moaning about the difficulty of tying a proper blood knot. Don’t give up!! Once you get it a light goes off, “Now that wasn’t sooo bad.” Remember the key to tying good knots is keep ‘er wet – good ‘ole saliva can’t be beat. Secondly, take your time. A rushed tying job can result in a leader that breaks down when you’ve finally hooked that big bow in surging flow. Been there, done that, and yes, there is crying in fly fishing. A final thought: save time on stream when you need to use another of your hand-tied beauties by keeping a foot or so long section of butt material on your line and then blood knot your next leader off this section. If you like you can use a section of Amnesia material to act as a bonus strike indicator.
A number of good leader-building formulas can be found on the web. For those still enchanted by actual books I suggest two fine classics, Joe Humphrey’s masterpiece, Trout Tactics and Art Lee’s, Fishing Dry Flies for Trout on Rivers and Streams. The former, a must have for any and all fisherfolk, includes a number of formulas covering everything from short, brush casting, to wet fly leader construction, to George Harvey’s famous “S-Curve” offerings that are simply marvels of design. Of course, the jacket photo of Prof. Humphreys cradling that impossibly huge brown trout is my all-time favorite piece of fish porn.
The latter contains a wealth of formulas ranging from short, stout 6’ 4X models to long, specialized, 20’ 7X ones best employed by expert casters. Mr. Lee is a stickler for precise, continual leader construction. If you use his formulas you’ll find yourself tying a lot of sections that only differ in one-inch increments. That’s a lot of blood knots, increasing the chance of a poorly-tied one in there somewhere. Just remember that the normal standard is a 60-20-20 ratio of butt to midsection, to tippet. A bonus of the Lee book are his thorough, step-by-step illustrations and the inclusions of two simply, fabulous knots to add to your repertoire: the dandy and handy uni-knot splice to use in lieu of the nail knot; and Gordon Lesinger’s tweed knot, a wonder of Scottish ingenuity that effectively eliminates the impact of a sliding clinch knot when dry fly fishing. Turle knot users will never go back!
So there you have it, some good advice on an often overlooked component of fly fishing. If you’re a presentation fanatic then you simply can’t ignore the benefits of tying your own trout teasers. You’re gaining flexibility in your methods, you’re looking in control on that limestoner, and when it’s all said and done, a trout caught on a leader you’ve tied yourself is always better than one caught on something else. Remember you’re saving money too. Now about that beer you’re supposed to buy me…..
Mark Lynch