Furled Leaders

[bibio1]

I love them. I bought about 10 5 years ago. They are great for turn over and perfect for wide open rivers.

On a tree lined burn there really isn't a need.

I like them because most of the flylines have looped ends so a furled leader is a great means of getting a fine topper at the end of the line.

Cheers

Paul

[Harpo]

That one you sent me is great Paul.

Is there a difference between furled and braided leaders, hear folk talking about both?

[Highlander]

Harpo, Furled leaders are woven from thead or nylon using a purpose made jig & are basically of "solid" construction. Braided leaders are generally of hollow construction. There are a few differences in manufacturing  but generally along the lines stated.
I use both Airflo braids & polyleaders & Blue Sky furled. Carry a selection in a small wallet. Gives me multiple choices for conditions & depth to fish. Means you only have to carry one fly line(floater),one reel & just add leader to suit whatever depth you want to fish at.
ie as in sinking tip.
Tight Lines

PS Alex E Mail answeared

[Darwin]

I use 5 foot leaders on the rivers for both dry flies and nymphing.  I get mine from this guy, he also has them on ebay.  Looks like a small price increase since I last got a couple.  I don't see a reason to go back to tapered leaders.

http://www.streamsideleaders.com/WESTERN%20STORE.htm

[Allan Crawford]

Why would that be Alex?

I have used nylon furled leaders since I introduced them to the UK all those years ago & have no issues with them over thread made ones. There are sutble difference but for robustness the nylon wins ever time. Unlike some cheaper ones on the market The Blue Sky ones are basically made correctly & in my opinion the best out there.

For a wee bit of proper info have a look here & make your own mind up.

http://www.blueskyfly.com/blueskyfly_011.htm

Tight Lines

Like the look of the spey one for salmon floating lines in low water conditions.

[Wildfisher]

Yesterday I used a 5 foot furled leader made from UNI thread from this guy.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-Hand-Crafted-Tapered-Furled-Leaders-3ft-4ft-or-5ft-For-Trout-Or-Grayling-/301230312627?pt=UK_SportsLeisure_Fishing_Line_JN&var=&hash=item4622b9ccb3

This leader had a 1.5 MM Riverge ring at the sharp end rather than a loop which made attaching and  changing tippets dead easy. I added 3 feet of 6.4lb Rio Powerflex and a foot and a half of  Rio Powerflex 5.1lb. It performed very well, ultra smooth turn over.

[haresear]

Yesterday I had a chance to use the Blue Sky furled leader Alan (Highlander) very generously sent me free gratis.
It was the 5' 9" light trout furled nylon as opposed to thread leader.

The venue was the top end of the Clyde, which varies from being very narrow to quite wide in places. The wind was kind, not too strong and it was essentially upstream, although the river is quite serpentine up there, so sometimes I was casting into the lightish breeze.

I usually fish a long leader on open rivers - about 14' or so is what I generally use when fishing dries, so I used a loop to loop to connected a 5' length of Rio Powerflex 3X (8lb b.s. or so) to the furled leader and then tied on about 3' or of 5X (5lb) to start with. I greased up the furled leader and part of the 3X.

I was quite apprehensive about the quite bulky loop to loop connection at the end of the fly line, as I like the connection to slide through the rod rings easily, both when playing a good fish and when trying to pull the fly line through the rings for casting. The connection was a bit more sticky than I'm used to, but it wasn't bad and I was able to fish with it quite comfortably.

I thought the long length of mono may have been too much for the furled butt to turn over, but I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it had no problems in that respect. I was fishing with a guy who was using a 15' tapered mono leader and he was struggling to turn it over. I thought maybe the furled leader was the difference between us, but when I tried casting his rod, I found I could turn over the leader just as easily as my own furled one. My casting was just a bit better at the bit that matters, the end. So, I don't know if the furled leader turns over any better than a plain tapered mono leader. I suspect it does, but that needs a bit more research than a day's fishing.

In use, the butt lay straight without coiling. I only had to grease it up one more time. I only hooked one fish that gave me a bit of a tussle, a fish about 1lb 8oz, but the fly line/leader connection passed quite smoothly through the rod rings.

Overall, I was quite impressed. I'll carry on using it for a while at least. The fly line/leader connection is the only thing that I'm not that keen on, but then, I'm quite fussy about that when fishing for big fish.

Alex 

[bibio1]

Alex,

We're you parked at the church?  Did you get the hail stones?

Cheers

Paul

[haresear]

Alex,

We're you parked at the church?  Did you get the hail stones?

Cheers

Paul

Oh yes, we got the hailstones :shock: Yes my car was the silver pug. I was wondering where you parked? Further up near where the waters meet I suppose?

Alex

[Wildfisher]

I have now used several types of furled leader. The best I have found  are made of UNI thread and terminate in a Reverge seamless ring onto which I tie various tippets. My "turn over" is not bad anyway, but where the furled leader really scores is on small streams when I am often casting only a rod length of fly line. They are also strong, I landed a mental fresh run salmon on one last week. The UNI thread leader requites a lick of Muclin at the start of the day, but I do that with single strand tapered mono leaders anyway, so no difference there. The fly line connection is loop to loop. Welded loop or Greys loop on the fly line and the loop on the UNI leader is tiny and can even be cast through the rings. I think I may have at last found a set up I am happy with that offers smoothness, security and bank side practicality.