Maxima?

[OttoDita]

What is everyones opinion on Maxima's leaders, quality wise, is it worth it?

One other question. They have a leader kit, the size confuses me. 1-20 or 3-40. What's all that mean? Seems I need work on my leaders, after reading through some old threads, I realized my biggest complaints about my casting all relates to my crappy leaders

Thanks a lot everyone,
Shane

[nb_ken]

Yeah, that must be the problem with my casting, too. If I could just get an adequate leader, I could cast 100'. Damn leaders!!!

[dudley]

I use Maxima, but only for the butt and mid sections, not for the tippet
Maxima is a hard type leader material and lays out well for casting, but as a tippet material it's too stiff for a good presentation.
The kits come in two different sizes. A heavy one with 40# test as the largest size and a lighter other one with 25# test the heaviest test line
The 40# test makes a good starting point for butts on heavier lines weights, 9 and up
The numbers on the spools themselves show;
a. the pound test
b. the diameter of the line
c. the number of yards of material on the spool

You might find that the Maxima is little hard to work with. A kit that you might like better is the Orvis Super Strong. I'm not a big Orvi$ fan, but the Super Strong is high quality supple material

[anglerdave]

Shane

While I don't have a kit, I have tied some leaders using Maxima Ultra Green. The numbers are pound test. So one kit has leader wheels ranging from 20# to 1#.

What I think is more important than pound test is the diameter of the material. For example I picked up some Ultra Green that was suppose to be .013. When I measured it with my micrometer it was .015. Not much good if your formula has you going from .015 to .013 and your .013 is also .015.

Dave

[okflyfisher]

maxima is know for its toughness and strenghth and does have it devotees. I have found the same thing that anglerdave has that the diameter is understated. I do use similiar leader material for warm water where diameter is not as critical

[Soft-hackle]

Hi,
I've used Maxima leader material for twenty years and find it very good. I like the newer green color although I'd used their Chameleon for quite a while. The nice thing about tying your own leaders is the fact that you CAN use different tippet material for the situation you are in. I've used both Maxima tippet material as well as others when building my leaders and have been very happy with the performance of Maxima. Yes, it is stiffer, but you can tie a softer tippet material on for a tippet. I like Climax for softer tips.

Mark

[JohnScott]

Otto -

You can do better than buying a kit. Take a look at www.flyfishusa.com. Go to tackle tips, go to about fly leaders. This will give you a great start on the whole process, including formulas for different leaders. Instead of buying a kit, you can select the leader material sizes that you will use for the leaders you decide to build.

I like Maxima Chameleon for building my own knotted tapered leaders ( although I usually use furled leaders, except for certain types of flies and fishing ). Dave makes a good point, from a technical point of view - Maxima is not always the size indicated on the spool. But I haven't noticed a problem with it using the formulas from flyfishusa, for what that is worth.

Also, I agree with dudley regarding tippet material. Add your favorite tippet material when you get to that point.

Good luck.

John

[Rocketfish]

Fantastic.

I use Maxima Clear for all my trout leaders. Simple Borger's formullas. Just sometimes I buy Rio or Umpqua. Not just for the butt section but for the entire leader.

A stiff tippet section with similar diameter than the other brands. Is just there on the thin part, where I need a perfect transference of the energy to push the fly and to have a straight leader end, not a pig tail. Specially when I use small dry flies.

Regards,

Rocketfish

[Guy]

Maxima is well known for understating actual line strength and diameter, that said, maxima is a good mono, I would call it "medium hard", there are harder monos out there (such as hard mason). Using maxima for the butt and taper will make a leader that turns over well in the wind. However unless you have been using level leaders or tapered leaders incorrectly matched to your fly line and size of fly, you may not notice the improvement. If your leader is not turning over in calm conditions, it may be you are not tansferring enough energy to the end of your forward cast to allow the leader to roll over. If this case, three things come to mind:

1) Your back cast is too low which pulls the bottom out from under your loop creating an inefficient extra wide loop.

2) Your timing on coming forward is off, essentially you end up losing energy and line speed.

3) You need to work on your "speed up and stop". "Smooth acceleration with a hard stop" really does wonders in turning everything over. Be careful though as too much power applied too soon will result in tailing loops.

Sorry, if I changed the direction of the thread, but poor leader turnover can be caused by a lot more than just the leader material if you have already been using regular length (7-10 foot) tapered leaders.

Guy

[raw69]

I have been tying my own leaders for the last year and Max is all I use. I switch to Orvis for the tippet. I just tie 3 part leaders - X + 1/2X + 1/4X. X being the length of the butt.