Take Me To Your Leader

By Merrill " Doc" Katz ~ North Cove Outfitters' Fly Fishing Staff

Modern technology has provided contemporary anglers with a broad spectrum of leader designs! Among these are: braided butt leaders, poly leaders for floating flies and those that sink at various rates; some of these are density compensated so that the leader sinks uniformly without bowing, theoretically allowing better contact with your fly; a very important consideration when fishing nymph or streamers. Knotless tapered leaders have been popular for many years and continue to remain so.

Some anglers still prefer customized or hand tied leaders; affording the angler with a leader configuration with which he is totally familiar; a useful feature if the leader needs to be repaired during a fishing session. Hand tied leaders are time consuming to make and each knot represent a potential weakness if the knot is improperly tied. Leaders, for all practical purposes can be divided into four categories: dry fly, wet fly, nymph and streamer. Over many years of fishing I have had the opportunity to use and experiment with many different types of leaders and leader designs. I am currently fond of poly leaders for certain fishing applications, but I choose to construct a series of custom leaders that will meet my needs on the waters that I fish.

Leaders are composed of three components: a butt, a transition section and a tippet. I use stiff tippet material for but sections and Scientific Anglers, Climax or Rio Power Flex tippet material for transition and tippet sections on my dry fly leaders. Subtlized tippets remain very important for dry fly fishing; the opposite is important for leaders that place your flies beneath the surface! Stiff leader material acts as a knife-edge and slices through the meniscus. This gets my subsurface flies into the business district!

My leader system contains leaders ranging in size from 5.5', 3X to 7.5', 4X for brush-laden streams and dry fly leaders from 9' 4X to 10.5' 5X. I also carry a series of leaders for wet fly nymph and streamer fishing; some with built in droppers and some short extra stout leaders for night fishing. I carry a dial micrometer such as the one pictured. It allows me to rapidly evaluate leaders that have been compromised. I can also check out commercial leaders when I choose to use them. The neophyte and even some seasoned anglers have fly and leader rigged and ready to go before approaching the stream. I would suggest that this is a formula for failure!  Take a few minutes to observe the water that you are about to fish. Note the depth and current speed and try to identify structure, sheltering and feeding lies. Is there anything on the surface or in the film that might trigger feeding activity? What is the water temperature? These environmental variables will allow you to use a tactic that can optimize your fish taking possibilities.

How your leader is reacting to the water you are fishing is extremely important. How often have you approached a stream, slapped on a leader and fished aimlessly? You probably changed flies;' have you changed leader configurations, adjusted the level of your strike indicator, changed or varied the position or quantity of weight on your leader, adjusted the length of the tippet to abrogate drag when fishing dry flies? Knotless leaders will fish well under average conditions; this is what they are designed to do. A little thought and understanding will allow you to adjust any leader to varying conditions. In addition to adjusting your leader you must be able to make the cast or casts that compliment your leader!

The selection and use of leaders is an extremely personal matter. The material here is suggested as food for thought. I'm not suggesting that anyone adopt my leader system. I hope that you will give a bit more thought to your selection of leaders and adopt or develop a system of leaders that will meet your needs. I believe that by so doing you will increase your fish taking ability and enhance your enjoyment of this great sport.