Tapered Leaders - Store bought, Home-made or Combination of Both?

RCF

RCF

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There have been a lot of threads about tapered leaders. I get that!

My perspective:

I like to buy store-bought tapered leaders for dry flies. I usually buy a store-bought tapered leaders, e.g. 7 1/2', and then tie on a 1 1/2' section of the next size smaller so I can switch flies or replace flies I lost, easily. I want the fly to present itself with a nice, soft splash down, if you will... Has worked for me for decades. But as I age and with the onset of arthritis and poorer vision, I find it is harder to do nowadays. So now I am leaning towards buying the longer leaders, and switching out leaders more often. Yeah, it costs more, but in the overall cost of a trip, it is negatable.

When fishing with nymphs or streamers, I just fish with the appropriate size of tippet. IMHO, the fish do not really care... They just want a meal, or at least an appetizer.

Note:

I do not fish leaders longer than 12'. But that is just me...

So the questions are:

Does tying your own leaders work as well or better than store-bought?
Do furled leaders work better?
Do fluor-carbon tippets work better?
Is it time for us 'old fogies' to get with the program?

RCF
 
I've never fished a furled, but I can day that floro isnt a dry flies friend! It sinks, fairly quickly and if it doesnt suck your fly under itll put a belly in your leader.

You can tie a very small loop knot into the tapered leader and clinch knot tippet onto that, it's like a tippet ring but you can still look yourself in the mirror the next day.
 
I buy 9'4X tapered leaders and use them until the tip is noticably thicker, then tie on a length of tippet and keep fishing it. I use a triple surgeons knot and it's quick and easy. Eventually, all that remains of the nine foot leader is five feet or so with various lengths of tippet tied on, maybe with a dropper tag (or two).

The few times I tried my own leaders they were as good or better than store bought, but are time consuming and fiddly to tie.

I only use flourocarbon in small diameters for sinking nymphs.

I sometimes use furled leaders, but I keep coming back to store bought 9' 4X tapered leaders.
 
RCF said:
There have been a lot of threads about tapered leaders. I get that!

My perspective:

I like to buy store-bought tapered leaders for dry flies. I usually buy a store-bought tapered leaders, e.g. 7 1/2', and then tie on a 1 1/2' section of the next size smaller so I can switch flies or replace flies I lost, easily. I want the fly to present itself with a nice, soft splash down, if you will... Has worked for me for decades. But as I age and with the onset of arthritis and poorer vision, I find it is harder to do nowadays. So now I am leaning towards buying the longer leaders, and switching out leaders more often. Yeah, it costs more, but in the overall cost of a trip, it is negatable.

When fishing with nymphs or streamers, I just fish with the appropriate size of tippet. IMHO, the fish do not really care... They just want a meal, or at least an appetizer.

Note:

I do not fish leaders longer than 12'. But that is just me...

So the questions are:

Does tying your own leaders work as well or better than store-bought?
Do furled leaders work better?
Do fluor-carbon tippets work better?
Is it time for us 'old fogies' to get with the program?

RCF
Click to expand...
It is time to get with the program! Fly fishing isn't cheap to begin with but the cost of store bought leaders is just mouse nuts in the overall scheme of things.

You can do something about the poorer vision with some good magnifiers and I mean good-not entry level stuff. The arthritis stuff is a bit tougher to deal with though and many of us fight it. You might try taking sugar completely out of your diet for a month and see if you notice any improvement.

I always blood knotted my leaders when I was steelhead fishing, the idea being that the added mass of the knots would help the heavier flies turn over. I don't know it that was true or not but it seemed like it was. But for lake fishing I want as few knots as possible as knots always attract weeds.
 
I've tied a fair number of leaders and have a great sheet of leader calculations! I've tied grass leaders, just leave the tag ends on the knots so that they catch the grass. I've used them for teaching casting on the grass, they are fantastic for spey rods. You can also just slow down your cast and/or use a heavy sink tip on a Skagit line or a heavy poly leader on a Scandi line.

I like them, but prefer store bought leaders for fishing, the extruded leaders don't have the knots that can catch stuff in the water.

I use a fair number of braided leaders, particularly on my bamboo rods.
 
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occasionally store bought (way too thick butt & too much butt IMO), usually self tied (I keep mine simple, 3'-4' each of 20-15-12-tippet, sometimes short (straight 15 or 12 or 10 for sinking lines-3-5', straight 40 lb for muskies), sometimes long (up to 16' for carp ending in 12 typically), used to use furled and they're amazing for dry flies. Regarding turnover, I don't really seem to have an issue with it in any configuration--some are better, yes, but none are terrible.
 
For most dry fly situations I use a store-bought leader with tippet added, but when I am on more technical water I will tie longer leaders roughly following the George Harvey design. For indicator nymphing I taper maxima down to a tippet ring and then tie on a section of 3-5x. I put the indicator on the 3-5x section leaving nothing but a level tippet between the indicator and the flies. I find it gets flies down much faster, without as much weight, and with a more direct connection with the indicator. The thick section of a tapered leader is very difficult to sink.

I used to use furled, they're great, I am not sure why I stopped but I don't seem to have any anymore. Sometimes I will used fluoro tippet for nymphs if I'm fishing tiny flies to picky trout in crystal clear water, but generally avoid fluoro as it doesn't seem to make much of a difference and its so much more expensive. In theory, it sinks better than mono.
 
I 100% buy tapered leaders for trout. Except in a rare pinch where all I had was a leader butt and some tippet while out fishing, I have never tied my own.

But I have started building bass leaders for throwing poppers based on advice I got in this thread.
 
Bonefish Jack said:
Do store-bought tapered leaders go “bad?” Does the material age? Get weaker, over time?
Click to expand...
Not if they're kept out of the sun and hot conditions. At least not for quite a while. Do the tug test with any leader you use, or tippet you tie on to extend the life of the leader.

I like to buy leaders and some flies when I go to a new fly shop! They're more likely to offer help, and you can't have enough leaders, flies, tippet material and other small items when you hit the river or lake!
 
I use several of the methods listed above:
  • Fish a store-bought 9'5X until I need to put on tippet. At the point, I put on a tippet ring and can use that to attach my 4 or 5X.
  • I have experimented with cutting off the butt section and 12-15" off of a 9'4X, and then adding 18- of 5X to the end. I learned this somewhere, but don't remember now. On some of my rods, this results in a nicer cast.
  • Furled Leaders, with tippet tied onto the end. I used this regularly until I listened to an episode of The Orvis Guide Podcast. A reader asked Tom Rosenbauer about furled leaders, and he said he couldn't speak intelligently about them because he'd never used one nor had he fished with anybody who used on. I'm pretty sure there was a subtext to that statement.
 
Bonefish Jack said:
Do store-bought tapered leaders go “bad?” Does the material age? Get weaker, over time?
Click to expand...
Any small nick in the leader or tippet will weaken it, maybe drastically. Once in while while fishing I'll pinch the leader between my thumbnail and the pad of my forefinger and slide my thumbnail down the length. Small nick are easily detected this way.
 
I posted this on another thread recently, so pardon me if I repeat myself. I attended a seminar by Rich Osthoff, a local fly guide and author. He said he like hand-tied tapered leaders more than store-bought, but the reason is the opposite of what you might think. He feels that having the knots will stop junk from sliding all the way down to the fly, so he can still fish it. Most folks complain about the knots collecting junk as a problem, he views it as an advantage!
 
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