News:

The Best Fishing Forum In The UK.
Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Member?

Main Menu
Please consider a donation to help with the running costs of this forum.

Why Long leaders?

Started by haresear, May 02, 2007, 01:25:31 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

haresear

 I put this post in the non-members section because I think we members, or in my case wee members, can all benefit from and contribute to the greater angling community.

Long leaders. I use as short a leader as I expect to need on any given day.
My base leader (minimum) is probably around 12 ft and I'll typically use another 3 to 5 feet over that on an average day. I'm talking summer tactics here. In Winter/early Spring, I'll be using or expect to be using heavy nymphs fished "blind" or "fishing the water."

The longer the leader the greater are the problems In turning it over. This is only one of the reasons why the old double haul is so useful. It is without a doubt the greatest tool in the angler's armoury when it comes to distance casting. "Big deal", many will say." I don't need to cast far".

You've heard this before, but it is true. Double hauling opens many doors. It is not just a distance technique.

Much more importantly. A (very) wee double haul lets us cast into a headwind effectively. It means we don't have to restrict ourselves to a 9ft leader, but can get away with one maybe double the length. This (leader length) is not so important if you are casting square across to the current, but the further upstream and the more acute the angle of cast, the more critical the length of leader becomes.

Most of my fishing is to rising fish and sometimes to sighted fish in the water. In my experience, fish aren't keen on seeing a nymph dropping through the water layers (It works often, but I've seen big fish spooked by this), so the long leader allows a long enough cast for the the nymph to reach the level of the fish and meet it at eye level. The double haul in conjunction with the long leader lets you do that.

Alex





Protect the edge.

sandyborthwick

Not Sure about the leader thing, I have found though that sometimes shortening the length significantly say from 14ft down to about nine on certain days on upland lochs starts to produce copious takes that the longer leader just did not induce. It seems most at odds with the theory of use as long and as light a leader as possible or prudent. I thought maybe it was the fly weight etc but this seems irrelevant on some practical research. The only thing it seems to clearly indicate that the Irish dabbler type wake forming fly type seems to induce the fish to rise and take - a shorter leader seems to aid this effect. I have found that especially during hot bright breezy summer days a shorter fly wake inducing leader works great when all else is failing - a most unusual state of affairs. As for double hauling I find it helps a lot when casting heavy nymphs or lures to turn over the fly.

Sandy B.O.

haresear

QuoteThe only thing it seems to clearly indicate that the Irish dabbler type wake forming fly type seems to induce the fish to rise and take - a shorter leader seems to aid this effect. I have found that especially during hot bright breezy summer days a shorter fly wake inducing leader works great when all else is failing

Sandy, what is your standard long leader and also the short leader? I don't mean length, but are they both knotless tapered leaders or what?

I ask because the "big butt" on the tapered leaders is prone to sinking, particularly when it starts to coil up a bit and needs occasional greasing up to keep it afloat. Is this perhaps what is happening?

Swithun,

Dead right. The haul helps in many situations.

Alex
Protect the edge.

greenwell

I'm not entirely convinced that long casts are always necessary. If we consider the trend towards longer and longer casts it seems to me to have developed alongside the rise of rainbow trout waters. Taking stillwaters as a starting point, it was normal in the early days to be using lines in the 7, 8 and 9 weight range and it became important to distance such "ropes" from the flies as much as possible largely because of the disturbance they cause when landing. People now tend to use casts in the 12 - 18 foot range as the norm but if you are using much lighter lines, 5's for example, the touchdown is much gentler. The result is that the fish are less frequently alerted to the line's presence and are therefore much less likely to shy away from the flies. In a wind there is already a lot of movement of water and I believe that casts of between 9 and 12' are plenty long enough. I did a bit of experimenting on this throughout last season and found that unless it was a flat calm or the very lightest of ripples then the old standard 9', three fly cast was perfectly adequate and there was no perceptible reduction in my overall catch rate. Indeed, even on days when I blanked there was no real reason to suspect that the cast length was responsible. In a flat calm I used casts of 12' in order to distance the line from the flies, but never felt the need to go longer. I tend to place more importance on the diameter of the cast material these days. And of course the shorter cast is much easier to handle and turnover is rarely a problem, even into a wind.

                                              Greenwell

haresear

Greenwell,

I was talking mainly about nymphs and dry flies when river fishing, although I do tend to use a long leader on lochs too.

Naturally, if I am having problems turning over a very long leader, I will cut it back until the problem disappears. I do though, tend to fish as long a leader as I can get away with and certainly don't think I catch fewer fish ar a result :D

Breac,

I have a furled leader that Harelug made. I'm not keen on loop to loop connections though everyone else seems to use them for furled leaders. How do you connect yours to the fly line?

Alex
Protect the edge.

greenwell

Haresear, what size of rivers are you normally fishing? On the WoL the length of cast you mention would often be the distance needed and I have found that that anything longer than about 9' invites more problems with overhanging foliage. I can imagine though that on rivers like the Tweed/Clyde/Tay, etc long dry fly casts would be easily  manageable.

                                            Greenwell

haresear

You are quite right Greenwell. I would probably drop down to about 12 feet on the wee overgrown rivers and burns. Having said that I have fished wee ovefgrown rivers in New Zealand with long leaders, but there I'm fishing to sighted fish, so I'm trying to keep the junction of line and leader well behind the fish on an upstream cast, so it is a different situation.

I mainly fish the Clyde and the Annan at the moment, but am going to the Lanarkshire Avon to take a mate fishing for the first time. He won't be using a long leader :D.

Alex
Protect the edge.

haresear

QuoteI will have to think about the furled leaders no doubt I will manage to splice them as wellbreac uaig

I was thinking of trying a nail knot, but haven't tried it yet.

Alex
Protect the edge.

Go To Front Page