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Tippet length and line color
One of the questions I get asked pretty frequently is how much tippet to use. I generally use about 3 1/2' of 5X knotted directly to my bright fluorescent orange tenkara line. Fly fishermen who are used to having 9 or even 12' of clear leader between their colored fly line and the fly often think this is too short and that the brightly colored line that close to the fly will scare the fish. I tell them it doesn't but I'm not sure they believe me.
Even experienced tenkara anglers are skeptical at times. There was a recent thread on the Tenkara USA forum announcing their new hi-vis line (not a bad line, by the way, although I do think the fluorescent orange is a bit more visible). One tenkara angler mentioned that he would use that line in the summer when the water was low and clear, thinking it would be less likely to scare the fish.
I hope the photo below will ease his concerns. Without realizing it, I had gotten my tippet tangled up and the fly was only about 4 inches below the end of my brightly colored line. It didn't seem to scare this fish (from a stream that is not stocked).
http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/s...ort-tippet.jpg
The Lochsa during runoff ...
... is really big and really deep. See for yourself, Warren. Just click on the pic.
http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/j...063_edited.jpg
Virtually every fish shown in the slide show was caught using a thread furled leader with about 3-4' of tippet, ranging from 4X to 2X. During runoff, I averaged somewhere around 15 fish in hand per outing.
After runoff, I continued to fish it, under more docile conditions, but it is still a big river and pretty deep in most of the places that hold the nice fishies. When things settled down, the average number in hand was probably well over 20 per day.
The thing is, I'm talking dry fly fishing and you may well be thinking about wets or nymphs. The dries were mostly my FEB salmonflies, golden stones, and hoppers, but I did get down to size 16 caddis and size 18 midges and bwos, still fished with the same basic leader and tippet set up. Sixty days of dry fly fishing from late May to mid November with the same set up. You can do the math on how many fish weren't much bothered by clearly visible light colored leaders with short tippets to the fly.
The other thing is, I only fish to dumb, nearsighted, and color blind fish. Well, actually, I do fish to some Ph.D. fish, too, with the same kind of rig, but I'm too dumb to know that that is what they are.
There's this little spring creek down in SE Idaho, a tributary to the South Fork of the Snake called somebody's No Tell'um that reportedly holds some of those Ph.D. browns and Snake River cutthroats. I don't much like fishing there, but when I did I fished thread furled leaders with short tippets and ordinary flies and caught some of those dumb educated fish. Just my luck.
John
Pretty much sums it up ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CM_Stewart
I may be wrong, but my impression is that the need for long leaders is primarily to minimize drag, particularly for dry fly fishing on spring creeks where there are a lot more small current variations in the glassy smooth surface than you can imagine. For wet fly fishing, which is what I was doing, I really do not think a long leader is critical. I've frequently read of streamer fishermen only using 3-4' of surprisingly thick tippet.
When the line is a supple as John's furled tenkara line, or as thin and supple as the line I was using that day (equivalent to 2x tippet diameter), combined with the ability to minimize drag that tenkara fishing provides, it really doesn't seem to matter that the clear tippet is pretty short.
I've found some hi-vis fluoro that should be thin enough to actually use for the tippet. I'll try it to carry the colored line question to it's logical conclusion.
... Chris.
I have used the same 3-4' tippet on a thread furled leader for nymphing smaller nymphs in shallower water, and even shorter tippet on occasion. I don't normally use that set up when strictly nymphing because my thread furled leaders are somewhat limited in how big / heavy a nymph they will comfortably cast. That is on the leader, not on the tippet length. It is not uncommon, whether fishing dries or nymphs, that the end of the leader is actually much closer to the fly, and the fish, than the length of the tippet.
When I do fish streamers, it is typically on a Class II full sinking with a down and across presentation. I use about 3-4' of 2X tippet, the heavy tippet because I'm usually streamer fishing with baitfish style streamers for larger brown trout which are likely to break off a lighter tippet, especially if they take it just as the streamer is being stripped.
I do think the point of the suppleness of the basic leader is worth emphasizing. That is where thread, as in furled thread leaders, comes in. Much more supple than regular mono leaders and more supple than furled mono or fluoro leaders. The entire length of a thread furled leader is more supple than the tip end of a mono leader, and I would venture to say the tip end of a 6X mono leader / tippet. The only thing that is going to drag the fly is the tippet, so less is probably better in most cases, even using very supple tippet, which I do.
John
On the subject of tippet length and line color ....
....
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...014_edited.jpg
.... I'm going to start a new thread on the FAOL Forum, and will link it here when it is done.
John
