Tippet length and line color

[CM_Stewart]

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).

[JohnScott]

May 7, 2011 I was fishing the Bitterroot, the last day it was fishable before runoff really kicked in, but it was still running clear. The last fish of the day was a wild and native cutthroat.



For some reason, I ended up tying on the fly with only about 12" of tippet added to a very light color furled line / leader. You can see how far it is between the end of the leader and the fly ...



This was no particular surprise to me. I've been fishing furled leaders for going on eight years now with my conventional fly rods and more recently with Tenkara rods. I usually fish a light tan thread furled leader, but occasionally go to a dark olive or bright orange, similar to what you show in your post.

My normal tippet length for both conventional rods and Tenkara rods is about 3' to 4', but if it ends up shorter than that it doesn't bother me at all. Numerous times I've fished with 2' or less and not missed a beat on hooking and landing fish. Virtually all the fishing I do is on clear moving water for wild trout.

I sometimes chuckle when I hear folks talking about the need for long leaders when fishing gin clear waters over spooky trout. I'm sure there are times when such gear is needed - but I suspect that sometimes the need is more between the ears of the angler than in the eyes of the fishies. Then again, maybe I'm just spoiled and ignorant.

John

[narcodog]

John,
I find your comment about short vs long tippets the same as mine. Many times I hear that one needs 10 or 12 ft of tippet and 8X, I have not found that the case under any conditions. When fishing Tenkara I often use a just a short 3 ft section of tippet.

[WarrenP]

John,

Just curious...With only 3 to 4 feet of tippet, how deep is the water that you are fishing? You stated that you normally are fishing clear moving water which leads me to believe that your water may only be 2 to 3 foot deep with maybe a deeper smaller hole along the way.

The only reason I ask is that I do believe there is a need for longer tippet on larger and deeper rivers.

Just thoughts.....

[JohnScott]

... is really big and really deep. See for yourself, Warren. Just click on the pic.



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

[WarrenP]

John,

You are right. I was thinking nymph/streamer fishing since that is my style and never gave a thought that you were dry fly fishing where the shorter tippet and thread leaders would work just fine.

Take care....

[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.

[JohnScott]

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

[Paul Arnold]

John -- You mention using furled-thread leaders when fishing with conventional fly fishing gear (not tenkara). Two questions come to me: (1) What rules of thumb for determining the length of the furled leader, and (2) how do you attach your furled leader to your conventional fly line? ~Paul

[JohnScott]

Paul -

My "standard" furled leader is between 5'8" and 6' long. I can use the same one on line weights 3 to 7, although the 7 wt tends to overpower it. I put a shorb loop in the butt end of the furled leader and do a "loop to loop" connection to the fly line.

John