I just spend 4 wonderful days of fishing the White River in Arkansas. I caught plenty of fish, as many as I ever do, but this time I didn't use a leader, I only used tippet. Sound strange? It did to me until I tried it.

I had read an article recently in an Orvis newsletter where the author said that he used only tippet on a few occasions and I decided to give it a try. Since I dont fish dries on the White, I dont have to worry about my fly landing just right on the water.

My fly line has one of those loop connectors on the end of it, so I just pull out about 9 or so ft of the 5x or 6x fluoro, tie a perfection loop in one end and handshake it to the fly line - other end goes to the fly. As I got wind knots or change flies, I just surgeon's knotted more tippet on to the end.

I didn't notice any difference in my hookup rate, and I didn't break off any fish either. Well, okay so maybe one, but I was able to determine I had tied a poor knot at the fly and it was knot failure, not because of the tippet.

Anyone else tried this? Sure seems like I could save a few semolians by not buying leaders all the time.