More (sigh!) Leader Fiddling

[Billems]

I've mosty knotted up my leaders fashioned on the old Harvey formula. Great dry fly leaders that really have done me great service in avoiding drag on my dry flies. But buildng leaders gets monotonous. The trouble with the knotless is the super thick butt sections--oftentimes 0.24--that give me a clumsy delivery. What I've done lately is to measure the taper on the knotless, down to where it's, say, 0.17, measure the length of it along a section of 0.19 Maxima (Usually marked as 0.17), cut to length and knot that Maxima section to the fly line. Then I knot the rest of the knotless leader to that butt section. I like a longer tippet, so I'll cut off, say, a foot of the tippet on the knotless, then knot on a 2 or 3 ft tippet of 4 or 5x. The 0.19 diameter Maxima leader butt is for 4-5 wt lines. Seems to be a nice compromise between having to build an entire leader and just changing he diameter of the butt section. Any of you do likewise?

 

[Canoetripper]

I have been very pleased with the www.murraysflyshop.com knotted leaders that I fish with.

 

[DGC]

Most 4X and smaller tapered leaders have .20 butts. The extra stiffness of the .17 (really .19 as you say) goes with that fine for me. So I just tie 6 to 8 inches of .17 Chameleon on the line and leave it for all leader changes both knotless and knotted. I must say I wish Maxima made an all Chameleon knotless tapered leader.

 

[Billems]

Most 4X and smaller tapered leaders have .20 butts. The extra stiffness of the .17 (really .19 as you say) goes with that fine for me. So I just tie 6 to 8 inches of .17 Chameleon on the line and leave it for all leader changes both knotless and knotted. I must say I wish Maxima made an all Chameleon knotless tapered leader.

Maxima makes great knotless leaders. They have a chameleon butt section and an ultragreen taper/tippet.19 They're just hard to find in fly shops. And since few use them, the ones you buy may be older and fragile. Maxima's 6x knotless leader has an 0.19 butt section. And since Maxima is ALWAYS thicker than stated on the label, the 6x section is most often 5x. So you can attach a 5, 6, or even a 7x tippet to the leader and be ready for business.

 

[dano]

Maxima makes great knotless leaders. They have a chameleon butt section and an ultragreen taper/tippet.19 They're just hard to find in fly shops. And since few use them, the ones you buy may be older and fragile. Maxima's 6x knotless leader has an 0.19 butt section. And since Maxima is ALWAYS thicker than stated on the label, the 6x section is most often 5x. So you can attach a 5, 6, or even a 7x tippet to the leader and be ready for business.

I'll second the Maxima knotless leader. I use a gauge and snip it at the 2X point and build out to my preferred leader setups.

 

[bdhoover77]

Mad River Outfitters in Columbus offers Maxima leaders on their website.

 

[poopdeck]

How many leaders are you using and making where monotony becomes an issue? I tied some leaders during a football game, looped them together and spooled them on an empty tippet spool. that spool tied during one game lasts forever and I’m more apt to change out the entire leader before tying knots when I’m cold and crotchety, personally, after much experimentation I learned, for me, there’s no benifit of getting that far into the weeds with leaders where I’m tying 6” of this and 8” of that. Less is more I guess. I am positive others will disagree but simple works for me.