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What is a consideration is having sufficiently strong tippets to handle the frequently savage strikes large Trout will give lake anglers. It's not uncommon for me to use tippets of 1X or 2X when fishing streamers or Leach patterns. For most river goers 1X would be considered overkill, at least in the Rocky Mountain West. When anglers use sinking lines with subsurface presentations, care must also be taken to guard against leaders too long in length. The reason is twofold. Number one, long leaders allow relatively buoyant flies to rise too far above the depth of the sinking line. If a line is designed to sink to say 12 feet, it's helpful to know your fly is about 12 feet down also. Otherwise, you don't know what depth your fly is at. Knowing where your at allows you to duplicate the depth when you start making contact with fish. Think for a moment, if you've spent all day finding the correct depth at which fish are feeding, you want to cash in on all your hard work by being able to go back to the same depth, even if you have to change flies to one more or less buoyant than the last one you used. Number two, it's not uncommon to add weight to your leader a foot or two above your fly. It's challenging enough to attempt the "chuck and duck" method of fly casting with sinking line and a heavy fly. Now try adding split shot to a long leader. If you rig this way you'd be wiser wearing a football helmet, than a fishing cap, for you'll hook the back of your head at least 10 times more often than you do any Trout. In summary, if you fish heavily weighted flies or leaders, go short and go stout. Throughout the years I've tried all sorts of cutting edge configurations and new fangled types of leaders. I've tried braided butt leaders. Extra stiff, hard nylon leaders. Stiff butt, soft tip leaders. Braided butt leaders with weighted braid. Non tapered leaders. Quick tapered leaders. Not-a-knot leaders. Knotted leaders. Hand tied leaders. Rubberized stretch tip leaders. And probably a few dozen others I've long since forgotten about. Through it all I've always come back to the same thing. Your basic, knotless tapered monofilament leader of reasonably good quality. Usually a 7.5 foot tapering to a 1 or 2X tippet. There are a bunch of leader makers out there. Stick with a good one. Climax, Scientific Anglers, Cortland, Reddington and Dai Riki have all made leaders that I've used and liked. I do modify my leaders a bit sometimes. If I'm planning on perhaps using some weight ahead of my fly, I'll tie on a tippet to create a knot ABOVE which I'll pinch on some shot weight. The knot keeps the weight from sliding down towards the fly. The tippet I add will usually be about 18 inches or so. So, if I have a 7.5 foot leader with an 18" tippet I end up with a 9 foot leader. Right? Well, not exactly. You see, when you tie on your leader to your fly line or butt section you lose about 6 or 8 inches with the Nail or Blood knot. Then another 8 or 10 inches with the Double Surgeons knot at the tippet. And of course another 4 or 5 inches with the Improved Clinch knot at the fly. More if you use a Palomar, which is a superior knot but uses a lot more tippet material to tie on. So when all is tied together and done, you end up with a leader of some 7 or 7.5 feet. About right for subsurface presentations. Now what if a hatch is coming off that you want to fish. Say Midges, Sedges or Callibaetis. All of which can bring up good fish to feed at the surface. What about leader length then? Well, depending on the water clarity, and water- wind surface conditions you may want to go with a leader as long as 12 or 15 feet with a long, limp tippet of 5X or perhaps even smaller. Just keep in mind that in a lake, fish have all day long to analyze a surface fly. If you do decide to fish a lake "up top" you'd better have an excellent pattern, presented just right. And you'd better hope for some surface chop to hide your leader. This gulper fishing as some call it, is some of the most challenging anywhere. But it can be and is done successfully, on a regular basis, by some VERY GOOD fly fishermen. Note the emphasis on very good. This is not a game for the rookie fly caster. So how do we build a 13 foot leader from a 7 foot 1X job? Well you just step down in X size adding leader material as you go. Let's say you start by adding 18 inches of 3X to your 1X leader. Then another 18 inches of 4X to the end of the 3X. Now your at 10 feet in total length with a 4X tip. Add another 3 feet of 5 or 6X tippet material and there you have it. 13 feet in total length. With a long, limp tippet. Now your ready for Gulper fishing. Or even better, your ready to fish an emerger or soft hackle pattern in or just under the surface film. Generally, that's a much more successful proposition. Before we leave the subject of leader there are a few important rules to remember. First the "X" rule of leader sizing. This rule is a silly non-sensical thing that goes all the way back to cat gut leaders and such from many years ago but it is followed today by all the manufacturers of fly leaders. The rule is this. 0X leader material is 11 thousandths (.011) in diameter. 1X is 10 thousandths (.010) in diameter and so on. So, what's the diameter of 5X tippet? Take 11 and minus 5. The answer is 6. Or in this case 6 thousandths diameter. This is a hard concept for most spin fishermen to grasp because for the most part, they define line as a certain pound test. Most pay no attention to line diameter. And in reality the two are only loosely comparable. Because one brand of 3X may be 5.5 pound test while another makers 3X will rate out at 7 pound test or even higher. The reason leader is still rated more in X size than pound test has to do with energy transfer. It's the same principle tapered fly line uses. A taper allows line and leader to create a smooth energy transfer from the rod tip down the line and out to the leader. Which causes lines and leaders to lay out nice, straight and evenly. Instead of in a big heap, a few feet beyond the rod tip. Thus as you step down your leaders X size by tying on smaller sections as you go, you create a leader that's tapered, and will lay your fly out well beyond your line at the end of you cast. This is called leader turnover. And it's very important to making an accurate cast. Just remember to step down no more than 2 X sizes at a time. So if your tippet is 1X you can step down to either 2X or 3X. But not all the way to 4X as this is too much step down at a time and would undermine smooth energy transfer. Unfortunately, weighted flies and weighted leaders really mess up leader turnover. But sometimes that's the price you have to pay to get down deep where the 'Bow's and Brown Trout play. |
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