troutbert wrote:
You can make things a simple or complicated as you like. I don't change leaders when going from nymphs to dries or vice versa. The butt of the leader stays on there, and I simply adjust at the tippet end.
Sometimes going from nymphs to dries, when they start rising, is a simple as snipping off the beadhead nymph, and tying on the dry fly.
But sometimes you may want to go to the next lighter size of tippet for fishing the dries. So you just cut back the final tippet to about 13 inches or so, add on a long piece the finer tippet, tie on the dry fly and go to it.
Leaders don't have to be exactly like the formulas say. Lots of people use different formulas, and catch fish, so it's not a precise thing by any means.
You simply adjust for conditions. If the water is fast, high and off color, you might be using a big weighted stonefly nymph. So you can use a short, heavy (3x) tippet.
If the water is slow moving and clear, and you're fishing a size 18 BWO nymph, that's a whole different thing. You're going to want a much longer tippet, and much finer (probably 6x). You just carry spools of tippet material, and adjust the leader at that end. You don't have to change the butt of the leader.