dry fly trouble

[AKguy]

This is my first year trying dries in eight years of fly fishing. I'm get pretty frustrated with it. Why does my leader pile up six inches in front of my fly line. It does it on a ten foot cast and a sixty foot cast. Six foot leader or twelve foot. What are your best guesses of what I'm doing wrong.

 

[afishinado]

Are you using a tapered leader? It sounds like your leader is not turning over.

What size tippet for what size fly? Perhaps the leader is too light to turn over your fly.

Need more info to be able to help.

 

[AKguy]

Normally have 6 to 7ft of 10lb with 2 to 3ft 5x. Anywhere from size 16 to 10. I have been putting on 6x for smaller flies

 

[tomgamber]

Not much of a taper there..more like falling off a table. Try a standard, out of the package knotted or knot less tapered leader. 9ft 5x is a good start.

 

[AKguy]

I refuse to buy a leader when I can build one just as easy for a lot cheaper. How does 3x to 4x to 5x sound. What are your suggestions on how I should taper it.

 

[afishinado]

As Tom said buying a tapered leader is the easiest way, but I too make my own leaders. Here's some info on making leaders with formulas. It should solve your problem:

http://www.flyfishusa.com/tackle-tips/leaders/about-leaders.html

Good luck.

 

[troutslammer]

start off with say 20 lb and end with a 2ft piece of 5x but taper it down , look up george harvey leader formula on google for a good recipe , remember when tying leaders those knots are a pain in the azz to get through the guides on rod so coat them with knot sense and the knots collect stream garbage but i use hand tied sometimes and bought ones too

 

[Heritage-Angler]

AK - sounds like your leader isn't transferring the energy from your flyline to your leader. This is what is commonly called "hinging" of a leader.

For a 4-6wt flyline, a simplified version of the George Harvey leader was developed by Gary Borger, that he calls the "Uni-body" leader. It has a butt section of 4' of Maxima Chameleon .020", and a taper of 1' of .013" Maxima Chameleon. To this, add 2ft of 3X, and 2ft of 5X for a 9' 5X leader. The blood knot between the two sections of Maxima should be a 5/7 turn blood knot, to allow good knot strength with such a radical stepdown in size (5 turns on the .020 side of the knot, 7 turns on the .013 side). Double surgeon's knots work well for the other knots.

-------------------l------l------l------fly
4' .020 - 1'.013 - 2'3X - 2'5X

This leader will turn over very well, and has the advantage of less knots than a true Harvey leader. It is easily rebuildable, since you know what the first three sections are at a glance. I add an extra 6" to the .013 to allow multiple rebuilds by just adding new tippet sections. By doing this, the leader should last a long, long time (years). To change it to a nymphing leader, just snip the 5X off and add 4X. For smaller dries, just add 6X to the 5X.

If you'd like one of these leaders (for free), PM me your address, and I'll gladly mail one out to you. Let me know if you'd like a perfection loop on the butt of the leader for easy leader swaps.

H.A.

 

[bam]

You have the answer. I'm guessing you used streamers and did a lot of nymphing with eggs if you fished AK. A length of straight mono is fine for that type of fishing, but when casting weightless flies you're going to need a tapered leader. Use any of the above formulas and your fly should turn over

 

[AKguy]

Bam, that is exactly what I did in AK. Steamers and nymphing caught the bows. Thanks guys for the help. I'm going to build up some leaders tonight.

 

[Padraic]

One thing... I fished hand tied leaders myself and one thing I can tell you is... if you get a tangle in the leader, cut it off and tie on a new one. There is NO WAY to untangle a knotted leader. Not if you want to do anything else except untangle your leader while your buddies fish.

So carry half a dozen when you go out.

 

[tomgamber]

I didn't mean that only store bought ones would work. But since you have obviously never built a tapered leader, buying one to see if its you or the leader is the fastet route to the truth. If the store bought leader works, take it off and copy it. There are tons of formulas for them and I am sure, without even looking, that the one Afish provided will be fine.

I have used both and have better things to do that tie leaders. Flies come to mind. Anyway I don't have more tangles with the knotted than I do the knot less as Pad suggested. Your mileage may vary.

 

[stevehalupka]

I'm gonna throw this in because I use tapered leaders and hate spending money on them.

Find fairplay leaders, I shop at walmart for them... $1.96, and usually get tipped off at 5 or 6x

Right out of the package, I add 3 feet of 6x, making my leader an ideal 10.5-11 feet (with 6 inches of heavy mono at the end of fly line for an easy loop to loop) This should last you at least 10 fly changes. As you get down to 15 inches of your original tied on tippet material, add another 2.5 feet of 6x to that.

After this, I clip off the original tippet extension, and redo the process. In a nut shell, a leader lasts me at least a week, and I luckily fish daily.

Upon doing this so many times the leader inevitably gets too thick to tie on even 4x, so, I bought a spool of 0 and 2x mono. If I am in dire need of a leader (usually carry these for spares) I throw 1.5 feet of each on, and then go down to my 5 or 6x. Building leaders just isn't my style, though all my friends do it.

I fished w. a buddy who uses furled over the weekend, and he has me twiddling my thumbs and indecisive. They seem to have a lot of advantages, not to mention making casting that much easier. Hope this helps, and I didn't waste your time

 

[troutslammer]

i do what almost what heritage does only i use 15" of .020 hard nylon, 15 " of .017 hard nylon , 18 " of .013 hard nylon to a tippet ring , then 4-6 ' of 2x for nymphing then cut back to 14" of 2x then add 20" or so of 3x then streight to 4lb fluoro for a nice slack at the section , ur just gonna have to experiment with different set ups ,everybody casts different so .....

 

[osprey]

Beside the tapered leader...........it sounds to me like you might be breaking your wrist on the forward cast , causing everything to collapse in a pile , try concentrating on keeping your wrist locked stiff on the forward cast and see if that makes any difference.

 

[gfen]

Afishinado posted a how-to on making hand-twisted leaders, which in turn led me to a simple how-to on youtube to make an even simplier, although probably not as good, leader.

Basically, you take mono and just twist it over itself, double it over a few times and you've got a nice furled-ish leader. I've got them about 5' long, then some tippet in smaller diameters down to what I want to use.

They lay out aces, and they're cheap. A little time and effort getting 'em twisted up and they last forever and resist wind knots.

 

[Padraic]

tomgamber wrote:
Anyway I don't have more tangles with the knotted than I do the knot less as Pad suggested. Your mileage may vary.

I didn't mean to say or imply that you will get more tangles. Just that you can't untangle them. The knots in the leader get caught in the birdsnest and prevent the leader from unsnarling.

Knotless leaders can be unsnarled, so you can recover from a birdsnest (if you have the patience).

I just like to warn folks new to casting knotted leaders about that.

I found, in fact, that knotted leaders are easier to cast because of the materials I chose. I used a very stiff mono for the butt section (maxima chameleon) through the mid section of the leader. Then a moderately stiff mono (Orvis superstrong) for the last couple feet.

I gave a couple leaders to PaulG once and he liked them too. I think he went back to his braided leaders though.