Fly Fishing, Planning, Fly Fishing for Beginners, Intermediate Fly Fishing
I remember working in my uncle’s fly shop as a kid trying to decipher the leader board. 9 foot 3X, 7-1/2 foot 0X…by the time I got it all up on the board there were over 30 different leaders to choose from. Which one do I need for how I am fishing? It's a question
every novice angler asks.
It Depends on What You're Trying to Do
Tapered leaders usually come in two lengths, 9 foot, and 7-1/2 foot. The thickness of the “tippet” (the last foot or so of the tapered leader) starts at 0X (about 15 lb.) all the way down to 7X or even 8X which isn’t much bigger than the diameter of a human hair, and has the breaking strength of about one or two pounds depending on the brand. As the X number goes up, diameter and strength go down. So it becomes a question of what you are doing and what you are trying to accomplish. It’s best to start with big fly, big tippet.
I was fishing the
lower Madison with a first-time client. By all appearances he looked like he knew what he was doing—patched up waders, sun-bleached fly bag - this obviously wasn’t his first rodeo. I gave him a big old size-4 yuck bug (crawdad Pattern) and told him to tie it on while I put the boat in the water. We hadn’t got a half mile and he hooked in to a whopper. The minute the fish hit I knew it was big. We played him and played him. I noticed that he wasn’t putting much pressure on the fish, so I told him to close the deal and crank up the pressure. He said he was afraid that he was going to break him off. It was then I asked him what he had on for tippet. “4X,” he told me. “OH shit that changes everything. Be careful!” I chased that fish all over the river and we did finally run him down. A sweet 24-inch brown. Everything ended well but the odds were stacked against us the whole fight.
Go Big or Go Home
I like to go with the thickest tippet I can get away with. Fish can see the line no matter what. If a trout can see a size-28 mayfly nymph free-floating at night with no moon, it can see your leader in the middle of the day.
It is not about the tippet, but how the fly behaves on the end of the line. When you try to fish a big heavy bug on a thin wispy tippet you will often break the fly off on the cast. They will eat it just fine, but you’re going to lose a lot of flies and a lot of fish. Conversely if you fish a small fly on a thick tippet it’s like the fly is on the end of a wire. It doesn’t sit naturally on the water and it doesn’t float right. Fish hate it.
This doesn’t mean you don’t need thin tippet for smart fish. The usual rule is: slow, clear water with well-educated fish means small flies and small tippet. Big, fast water, big flies and big fish call for a short strong tippet.
When I fish streamers up close to the bank on the Madison I usually fish 0X. That’s almost 15lb. test, which is enough to straighten out a size 4 hook without breaking it off. When you’re fishing the bank, it’s a game of inches. You need to be near the bank, but you’re bound to overshoot once in a while and stick the grass or sticks on the shore.
With 0X you can rip the damn snag out by the roots. Be careful because the breaking strength of 0X is higher than the breaking strength of most fly rods. Always point your rod at the snag when break off seems imminent!
When I fish small dries on the upper Madison we spend a lot of time hitting the slicks behind the rocks. Very tricky cast. Dead water behind the rock with fast current on either side makes it hard to get a good drift in the slick. For this I want a long piece of 4X that I can pile into the slick so the fly has a lot of slack once it hits.
I have a client who is great at this. He has his own special leader recipe. He uses a 13 ft. leader with a long piece of 4X on the end. He is an expert at the “pile cast” and because of the long thin leader can drop a dry in behind a rock and get it to float down the whole slick. Gulp!
A Good Rule of Thumb
So now back to the original question, what leader do I buy? The answer is a simple 7-1/2 foot 0X every time. Once you have a 0X leader on one knot, you can customize for whatever situation you find yourself in. If I’m fishing small dries and soft delicate presentation is required, I’ll tie on a long piece of 4 or 5X (3 or 4 feet) small streamer maybe some 2X with a piece of 3 or 4X off the back for a dropper.
Big streamers tie right on to the 0X. Some guys will even tie a loop on the end of the tapered leader so they can make loop-to-loop connections of whatever tippet they want. This way you can go from fishing big streamers to small dries with one quick loop-to-loop connection. This also saves you from having to break out a new $4 leader after every 5 or 6 fly changes. This all requires a good collection of tippet. I carry 0X down to 5X. If I have to go to 6X I’m going to look for dumber fish. I can’t see that small any more.
You also need to get good at your knots. If you don’t know how to tie a
surgeon’s knot, learn it. It is faster, as strong, and enables you to change diameters much better than a blood knot. Also, tying flies on with loops allows you to get away with murder on tippet size.
Remember they see the line no matter what, fluorocarbon or whatever. It is how the fly behaves on the end of the line. Loops allow the fly to move freely on the end of the line, allowing for a more natural drift, and in the end, that’s what it’s all about.