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Thread: Leader formula

  1. #1

    Question Leader formula

    Some years back I bought Kathy's DVD and built my board. I have enjoyed it. Now I want to venture further into the darkside and build varying lengths of furled leaders to suit my needs. Are there some general rules to use? I don't think I can just use the board I made from Kathy's dvd and change it length and peg positions or can I?

    Thanks to those who worked to get us a Furling section on the bb.
    Trout don't speak Latin.

  2. #2

    Default The fundamentals ...

    ... to my way of thinking are material, length, configuration, and proportion.

    Materials are quite varied, and other members are much better equipped to speak about them than I am. Personally, I prefer thread furled leaders, and my thread of choice is Danville 210 Flymaster Plus. Uni 6/0 seems to be a very popular thread for furled leaders. Some monos and fluoros are also pretty popular.

    Length is discussed in terms of starting length and finished length. It seems most people twist the material to the point that the finished length is about 90% of the starting length. The jig that I use generally produces a finished length that is about 85% of the starting length. I really don't get too excited about this aspect of furled leaders, because a few inches more or less won't have much, if any, effect on how the leader performs.

    Configuration refers to how many strands of material there are in each section of the leader. What seems to be the most popular configuration is a 10-8-6 i.e. ten strands in the butt section, eight strands in the mid section, and 6 sections in the tip section. With finer materials, e.g. Uni 6/0 vs Danville 210 which is closer to a 3/0 thread you might want more strands in the configuration, say a 14-12-10, or if you want to have a heavier duty leader, to fish large nymphs under an indicator, for example, you might use the 14-12-10 configuration with the 3/0 thread.

    Proportion refers to the length of each section as a percentage of the total length of the leader. My own preference is for proportions 40% butt section, 30% mid section, and 30% tip section. The more sophisticated folks probably have any number of configurations they use to achieve a particular performance characteristic.

    You can make furling leaders as simple or as complicated as you want. Parnelli, and some others, are really into the "science" of it and have done a whole bunch of work developing different leader formulas. That works for them. For myself, I just like to keep it as simple as possible and typically fish a single leader material / length / configuration / proportion on all my rods for just about all the fishing I do.

    John
    The fish are always right.

  3. #3
    Join Date
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    Default

    TyroneFly,

    I will submit this, but, I do not consider myself the "guru" of furled leaders so I am sure someone is and will respond.

    I started with Kathy's DVD and learned the basics from that and then decided that I wanted a longer furled leader. I did not want to destroy the integrity of Kathy's formula, because it works, so I decided that I would increase the distance between pegs the same throughout. By this I mean, if I added 3 inches between Peg 1 and 2 then I would increase the distance between the other pegs the same 3 inches. This worked out fine. Now I do listen to others and read their posts and listen to their logic for things they do and now have a different formula that seems to work very well for me. John Scott posted that he feels the butt section should be the longest of any furled leader and to me this makes sense for the turn-over just like it makes sense for Wluff Triangle Taper fly line. You have larger diameter turning over smaller diameter throughout the leader/fly line. With that thought in my mind I have the following measurments that I use for my furled leaders which makes a leader about 6 feet long which I really like for my style of fishing. My pegs are as follows: Distance between Peg 1 & 2 is 32" - Distance between Peg 2 & 4 is 25" - Distance between Peg 4 & 3 is 25"
    If you add up 32" + 25" + 25" you end up with 82" and if you twisted each leg until they are 10% shorter you end up with 73.8" and if you divide that by 12" in a foot you end up with a leader about 6.15 feet long. This length will vary with what material you use. At the present time I am only using Vanish Transition Gold Fluorocarbon because 99.9% of my fly fishing is with sub-surface flies and I want my furled leaders to sink and this material sinks very well for me. I do not feel I will be changing my formula anytime soon unless a post is made that interest me enough to do more experimenting. I am not afraid of thinking out of the box and experimenting.
    Warren
    Fly fishing and fly tying are two things that I do, and when I am doing them, they are the only 2 things I think about. They clear my mind.

  4. #4
    Join Date
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    Default

    FWIW; Karel Gol, in The Netherlands, and a member here, has taken Steven McGarthwaite's (parnelli on this board) Big Furled Leader Formula (BFLF) and with some help of a couple of furlers here in the US, has created an Excel spreadsheet that will enable one to create the post spacing for furled leaders that have the same mass in the butt section for a given line weight that is found in a mono leader for the same weight line. You can also get the peg spacing for at least three different step-down formulas and for any length you desire. And for good measure, Parnelli's recommendations on % slope are also included! The developmental history for this spreadsheet, as well as the spreadsheet itself, can be found at: furled leaders.co.uk under the heading of "All my info in one file" in the "Setups and Techniques" heading.

    THANK YOU Parnelli for taking the time, and going to the trouble, to develop your 'formula'!

    aged sage
    Last edited by aged_sage; 01-13-2011 at 10:16 PM.

  5. #5

    Default

    Thanks for the replies. I want to make leaders in the 6.5' to 9.5' range. So the information you all supplied is very helpful. I currently use Uni 6/0 when using Kathy's setup. It has worked well for me.
    Trout don't speak Latin.

  6. #6

    Default

    I'm a Big Furled Leader Formula fan...as aged_sage mentioned . You can plug in the length you want and the number of strands you want and the number of stepdowns [that is the porportion John mentioned] and it will give what some of us consider the most efficient transfer of energy.
    Having said that IMHO furled leaders are so efficient that it probably doesn't matter very much.

    The short answer to your question..."I don't think I can just use the board I made from Kathy's dvd and change it length and peg positions or can I?"...is yes you can. That's what I did at first ...I just added more pegs to the board and marked them relative to the particular leader I was after. Of course when you do enter the dark side you will want to make a board on which you can vary the positions of the pegs rapidly and easily.

    I prefer using pegboard...others have more of a channel to slide the pegs in.

    I think that what boards the folks use and their reasons should be the subject of a separate thread ,now that we have a "Furling" forum,....there are many good ideas out there.

  7. #7
    Join Date
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    Default

    The only thing I can add to what ducksterman just said is that it is my fondest hope that we don't try to "reinvent the wheel", and neglect what has already been done on "Furled Leaders", the British board on the subject..

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