Ocean Coho Leaders

Nick Clayton

Fishing Is Neat
Forum Supporter
No, I just like systems to work correctly, like if I hang up and need to break off I want it to break off at the fly ideally, and not fvck up my fly line loop in the process.


That's part of where I get lost cause I've never once had a leader damage a line loop, and I have definitely done it wrong my whole life.

Not saying it doesn't happen, I've just never seen it and I'm curious if I've just gotten lucky.
 

Matt B

RAMONES
Forum Supporter
That's part of where I get lost cause I've never once had a leader damage a line loop, and I have definitely done it wrong my whole life.

Not saying it doesn't happen, I've just never seen it and I'm curious if I've just gotten lucky.
Oh, yes I have cut through the coating of fly line loops by using too thin of a leader material. Now I always have a step down, or straight fatty mcMaxima
 

Kfish

Flyologist
Forum Supporter
In my denial of using a laptop anymore today, YouTube mobile broke it into 3 videos.






Thanks for the videos!
It's the same connection though, just the position of the loop ends relative to each other.
Totally agree on the handshake, it spreads the load equally.
 

Grandpa Jim

Steelhead
I still don't get it, setting an alarm for your video :)
So this is what I'm talking about, no?

View attachment 76861
This is what we have been talking about. I use a bigger perfection loop...maybe 1" in diameter so I can get even a big stinger clouser through it. You might have to play around with getting the knot back through the fly line loop and then making sure it all lines up like above. Once you get casting or hook a fish the loop folds up. It doesn't seem to collect weeds too bad. Stonedfish, I changed out a couple flies like this while I was fishing near you on Sunday. I use about 4' of leader with my intermediate or sinking lines in the salt. I just coil the pre-tied leader up before I place it in the baggie. It usually comes back out of the baggie OK but occasionally it turns into a mess and I have to fuss with it.
I use a variation of this when chum fishing. To my OBS floating line I loop in a 9' salmon leader. I cut about 2-3' off the front end of the salmon leader and then tie in a perfection loop. I then loop in a 4' pre-tied leader with attached fly to the perfection loop at the end of the salmon leader.
I have used a variation of this system for my steelhead float fishing for a number of years. Instead of a perfection loop I attach a #7 snap to the pre-rigged leader. I attach the snap to the lower swivel of my in-line weight. I have a number of pre-tied riggings (jigs, jig/worms, beads) in plastic baggies that I stuff in my rain jacket pockets. If I break off or want to change my rigging I can even do it while wading (not too deep and safely in gentle current). At the end of the day I re-rig all the broken-off presentations and re-load my baggies. I keep extra riggings in baggies in small zip lock bags that I keep in my back pack. If I loose a lot of tackle I go into the back pack to re-load. This maximizes time fishing instead of tying riggings.

I haven't read through all the following posts so if repeating something I'm sorry. This system has worked really well for me. Hope it does for you.
 

Stonedfish

Known Grizzler-hater of triploids, humpies & ND
Forum Supporter
This is what we have been talking about. I use a bigger perfection loop...maybe 1" in diameter so I can get even a big stinger clouser through it. You might have to play around with getting the knot back through the fly line loop and then making sure it all lines up like above. Once you get casting or hook a fish the loop folds up. It doesn't seem to collect weeds too bad. Stonedfish, I changed out a couple flies like this while I was fishing near you on Sunday. I use about 4' of leader with my intermediate or sinking lines in the salt. I just coil the pre-tied leader up before I place it in the baggie. It usually comes back out of the baggie OK but occasionally it turns into a mess and I have to fuss with it.
I use a variation of this when chum fishing. To my OBS floating line I loop in a 9' salmon leader. I cut about 2-3' off the front end of the salmon leader and then tie in a perfection loop. I then loop in a 4' pre-tied leader with attached fly to the perfection loop at the end of the salmon leader.
I have used a variation of this system for my steelhead float fishing for a number of years. Instead of a perfection loop I attach a #7 snap to the pre-rigged leader. I attach the snap to the lower swivel of my in-line weight. I have a number of pre-tied riggings (jigs, jig/worms, beads) in plastic baggies that I stuff in my rain jacket pockets. If I break off or want to change my rigging I can even do it while wading (not too deep and safely in gentle current). At the end of the day I re-rig all the broken-off presentations and re-load my baggies. I keep extra riggings in baggies in small zip lock bags that I keep in my back pack. If I loose a lot of tackle I go into the back pack to re-load. This maximizes time fishing instead of tying riggings.

I haven't read through all the following posts so if repeating something I'm sorry. This system has worked really well for me. Hope it does for you.

That’s the great thing about fishing, everyone has things that work for them.
I personally won’t be tying any flies on leaders so I can change things quicker.
I’ll just strip faster on the next few casts to make up for the fishing time I lost changing leader or fly. 😉
SF
 

Greggor

'Schooled' by Roy Patrick
Forum Supporter
Are you guys actually getting broken off regularly? I literally can't think of the last fish to break me off that wasn't the result of me doing something stupid or just being lazy and fishing the same tattered piece of leader for days on end. Seems folks are pretty focused on this stuff, so maybe it's a bigger problem than I realize.

Today we caught albacore on a rod/leader/fly that was still rigged up from last year, including being looped wrong. I can only think of 2 albacore thar ever legitimately broke my leader, and one of those two was simply when loose fly line wrapped around my life jacked pull cord so I grabbed the line and broke off rather than have my jacket go poof and never hear the end of it.

I am genuinely curious if break offs are a real thing for you all, referring specifically o PS fish, cause I've just never seen that as a problem.
Hey Nick,

Not breaking off regularly, perhaps a half dozen times per season. I see the broken loop in the non-slip loop once or twice, and the rest I believe are related to leader imperfections I am either unaware of, determine I am willing to fish with(lazy), or fouled line taking the bend out of the rod. Rarely is it ever a knot failure(breaks are mid-leader).

I think my situation will be easy to improve upon. Step it up! I was using 10 lb. UG, now using 12 lb. I'll go to 15 lb in UG in the future, maybe 17 lb fluoro for non-abrasion quality. I'll stick with loop to loop leader connection and non-slip loop knot to fly, as it stands now.
 

skyrise

Steelhead
I use the mikael frodin way of attaching a leader to a fly line or poly leader with a bad or no loop. as he says in the video it’s basically an Albright knot. Poly leaders are notorious for me if i nail knot the leader on then get a strong fish on and the nail knot strips the coating right off the poly leader and gone. Same thing happens if i snag up on something and then try to pull free.
 

Divad

Whitefish
My preferred way to use a poly/versileader is to snip off the ~8”-12” exposed section that comes at the end. Then whip a loop with some GSP on a bobbin with enough tension to cut into the leader coating but not sever it. Whip finish.

Then I coat the wraps with UV Knot Sense or AquaSeal. I’ve broke off many flys and tippet and my loops still look great. Bjorn at The Fly Fisher taught me this.
 

skyrise

Steelhead
And there is the Mad river youtube video on how they make their own loops in fly lines for guys like Flip Pallot etc. They use 10lb maxima for the knots. maybe I should have tried that method last year on my OBS when i had to make a new loop instead of using mono chord thread ?
 
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