I USED to use THREAD furled leaders exclusively for dry fly fishing for trout and occasionally for wet fly/nymph fishing when the fly is smaller or I am fishing a really small creek.
For streamer fishing, serious wet fly/nymph fishing and all of my warmwater exploits I much prefer regular knotted mono or fluoro leaders. A couple of things I can mention about furled leaders that I like & dislike:
1. The "spray" thing is WAY over dramatized. All leaders will hold a tiny bit of water at knots and such and spray when false cast. All that needs to be done to negate this is pick-up, make at least one forward cast before presentation and DON'T make that first forward cast over the fish. When the fish are spooky, I do this with every type of leader I use.
2. I like furled leaders long for medium to large streams, about 7 feet is my preference and I have short 3 foot versions made up for small streams. I use no other lengths.
3. I like to add one or two transitional sections of mono plus a tippet, which gives much more flexibility for length, tweaking turnover or going to a heavier tippet versus just adding a single really long tippet section. It also saves on tippet material as my tippet length is shorter overall.
4. I ONLY use furled leaders made of UNI thread and I like the furl to be tight. I HATE the mono or fluoro furled leaders because they twist up like crazy if you get a snag that abruptly becomes free or pull them through your fingers to dress, dry or clean them. They also don’t float as well when dressed and spray more if that matters.
5. I clean my thread furled leaders with soap & water when I clean my fly line and redress them when dry. They seem to last forever with a little care.
6. I like a loop on the back end to facilitate swapping leaders since I prefer regular knotted mono leaders for heavy flies and I like SMALL (1.5) tippet rings on the tippet end. I don’t like big tippet rings (2.0 – 2.5) on my leaders and have gone so far as to swap out bigger ones on leaders I bought. I won't buy from furlers who only offer bigger tippet rings.
7. I have found that Shorb loops on the fly line end can slip over time allowing the loop to get so small that it can become very difficult to swap leaders. My remedy is to put a tiny drop of UV Knot Sense on the junction of the Shorb loop when I first get the leaders from whomever I am buying them from.
8. I ALWAYS carry a 1.5 mm crochet needle with me to gently undo the occasional wind knot. While a knot won’t weaken or effect leader performance, I can tell you from experience that your fingers will NOT do when you get a knot in a thread furled leader.
The funny thing is after all of this, I found something I like WAY better than thread furled leaders,
a Terenzio Silk Blend or Artificial Silk Leader.
They turnover better, they float WAY better when greased, you can get knots out more easily, they are more durable, they don’t spray any more than a regular extruded leader; they are a DREAM to use with a real silk line (if you use them) and Terenzio will make them in any length upon request.
They are obvious a lot harder to get; you need to order direct from Terenzio in Italy (which wasn't a big problem before but may be a problem now?) however, they are worth the cost, time & effort for me.
