The great leader controversy

[SteveG]

I'll echo what pcray said. Learning how leaders work, by hand tying coupled with trial and error, upped my successes as well.

I used to nail knot a thick butt to my flyline and constantly make adjustments off of that, but that wastes too much time on the water, and occasionally everything needs scrapped.

I now keep the welded loops on my flyline, and carry a leader wallet that has various sizes of leaders terminating in a variety of tippet sizes. Judging by the increase in my accuracy, I don't feel that the loop to loop connection is as bad as many report it to be, the key being the size of your perfection loop (practice tying small ones).

Another thing that saves time, is keeping a pre-rigged dry droppers. I can go from a delicate midge dry fly leader, to a powerful leader rigged with a foam beetle and tunsten nymph in one minute on the stream.

It may sound mechanical, but any increase of time in which your fly is on/in the water, as opposed to fumbling with equipment etc, will result in more fish being caught.

 

[pcray1231]

You can drop that leader wallet down more, I've found.

So, on average, a third or so of the leader should be tippet (give or take some based on conditions).

So, I keep 3 leaders with me. One to make a 7 footish leader. One to make a 9 footish leader. And one to make a 12 footish leader. And I label them as such. These leaders initially lack tippet altogether, so the one to make a 9 footer is about 3 feet of butt and 3 feet of taper, no tippet. I put it on at the stream. The same leader can then be a 3x or 6x leader. Just change how you finish it!

Of course, after fishing I just leave it on, and only change it next time if need be. Which isn't that often. Because I seem to use 5x a whole lot, lol.