Leaders

[garb72]

What are the pros and cons of one piece tapered leaders vs. the tippets you put together your self (not sure how to say it or what its called)?

[Buddy Sanders]

Garb,

For most fly fishing, leaders and tippets are different things.

You can buy ready made 'tapered' LEADERS...they come in various sizes and lengths. You can make your own tapered leaders by tying together different diameters of leader materials. Some folks like the ability to customize lengths and diameters in their own designs...others like the ease of premade leaders..both will catch fish just fine.

TIPPET is the section of line that ties to the fly itself. Most premade LEADERS taper down to a specific tippet diameter, and lots of fishermen just tie their fly to that. But this means that every time you change flies, you are losing a little bit of your LEADER, and depending on how often you change flies, you'll sooner or later end up in an area of the LEADER that is thicker than you desire. To prevent this from happening, most of us tie a piece of TIPPET MATERIAL to the end of the LEADER.

This piece of TIPPET can be as long or short as you want, most folks use a couple of feet of it. This lets you tie on the flies using up only part of the straight level tippet material, and not a part of the expensive tapered leader. When the tippet gets too short, you just tie on a new piece.

Doing this can allow a new LEADER to last for several seasons if you want it to.

Now, to your original question:

Making your own hand tied leaders lets you determine things like taper, length, overall and specific strengths, etc.. If you want a really heavy leader for fishing large bass bugs in heavy cover, you can tie one up that tapers from 180-120-80-60-40 (can't buy that kind of thing). If you want a leader for fishing chronomid patterns deep in a lakle, you can tie up a stiff butt short tapered leader to turn over the strike indicator, and add a 20 foot piece of flourocarbon tippet to it...things like that.

Premade tapered leaders are smooth with no knots in them except where the tippet attaches...they won't catch on bits of debris and weeds, etc., they turn over well, and work just fine for most fly fishing...plus, they are easy to get and use...not time spent tying all those knots.

All in all, though, absent some odd specific requirements, it's really just a matter of personal choice. There are some very accomplished fly fishermen out there who don't bother with any kind of tapered leader at all. They just use a properly sized level piece of monofilament line.

Kind of up to you.

Buddy

[kengore]

Hand tied leaders, made from sections of monofilament material (tippet) knotted together...

PRO
1. Allow you to fine tune the leader design to meet special conditions, for example turning over really big bass bugs or casting into the wind.
2. Can be cheaper to make your own if you purchase the raw materials in bulk, pennies per leader.
3. You can add things like a bright colored section for a strike indicator or tags ends for droppers.
4. Knowledge acquired in building your own means you can make up what ever you need in the field if you are well stocked on tippet. Oop's, I left my 6X leaders at home, no problem I can build one right here.
5. You can mix and match materials, for example a butt section of stiff mono and a tip section of fast sinking flourocarbon.

CON
1. You have to tie lots of knots, takes more time.
2. Knots can collect debris if you fish water with lots of grass and weeds.
3. Knots can catch on your guides and are somewhat weaker than leaders w/o knots.

Commercial tapered leaders...

PRO
1. No knots, smooth continious tapered monofilament from butt to tip.
2. No assembly required, fast and easy for those that don't have extra time.
3. May have greater breaking strength due to fewer knots in the system, typically not an issue since the knot at the fly is probably your weakest link.

CON
1. Usually come in 7 1/2 foot or 9 foot lengths, what if you want a 12 foot leader for spooky fish or a short 4 ft. leader for streamers?
2. More expensive and getting more so over time.

Another option is to use home made (or commercial) furled leaders built of thread or monofilament. These are knotless tapered leaders built up of mutliple strands twisted together like a rope. They have great turn over power, are long lasting and inexpensive to make. Building them at home requires a simple jig and some comon tools you probaly already own. Use the search function on this web site for more info, there is a lot of stuff out there already.

[garb72]

Thanks guys. I use a 9 foot tapered and the tip is 5x.... could i just buy 5x material and add a foot or two to the end of that so i dont use my leader so fast, and will it make a big difference the way it casts?

[Greg H]

A) yes you could do that
B) it would change the way the system casts, the tippet would become quite long for the balance of the leader any may collapse and fail to turn over the fly. On the other hand, the extra wrinkles in the longer leader would mean a better drag-free drift. You could always just use the 5x to replace the end of your leader after about 3 flies.
c) buy a 9ft 4x leader and add the 5x to that. It would probably turn over and lay out better, it would still have 18" or so of soft tippet, and when replacing the tippet after 4 or 5 flies you would not be losing much of the original 4x.

[CoachBob]

For example, if you go to Cabela's right now they have 9' tapered leader on sale for $0.88. It is 7x but if you want a larger tippet, cut off the last couple of feet and tie on 5X.

[garb72]

A) yes you could do that
B) it would change the way the system casts, the tippet would become quite long for the balance of the leader any may collapse and fail to turn over the fly. On the other hand, the extra wrinkles in the longer leader would mean a better drag-free drift. You could always just use the 5x to replace the end of your leader after about 3 flies.c) buy a 9ft 4x leader and add the 5x to that. It would probably turn over and lay out better, it would still have 18" or so of soft tippet, and when replacing the tippet after 4 or 5 flies you would not be losing much of the original 4x.

if i replace it about every 3 flies or so how much should i tie on at a time, a foot?

[kengore]

Commercial tapered leaders usually have a section of level tippet at the end, this lets you change flies a few times and still have the same size at the tip. Once you have used this up you can add new tippet sections.

For example, I start out the day with a fresh 9' 5x leader that has an 18" long tip of level 5x material. My first fly of the day gets tied on and I use about 4" of material tying the knot. After 5 or 6 fly changes the 5x level tip is down to about 4". So I tie in a fresh piece of 5x about 18" long and start the proccess over. During a days fishing the level tip may vary from 6" to 18" in length, but this is not enough difference to have a big impact on how the leader performs. In contrast, adding 18" the a fresh leader would mean a level tip length of 32" and that might be enough to effect the turn over.

If I change flies a lot or if I start to break off bigger sections of leader I might need to rebuild more than just the tip. Say I snag a tree and break off 30" of material. I can rebuild the leader to it's original 9' 5x formula by adding 6" of 3x, 6" of 4x then 18" of 5x. Note: since I need about 4" extra at the tag end to tie a knot I use 14" of material to end up with a 6" section (4" tag - 6" finished section - 4" tag.)

You might argue that I start the day fishing with a knotless tapered leader and end the day with a hand tied one!

For me the biggest benifit of experimenting with hand tied leaders is that I learned how leader design effects casting. As others have suggested you might want to have an extra long tip section. The well respected 'Harvey Leader Formula' is designed to have too much tip length so the end of the leader collapses into loose coils just before the fly. This extra slack is intended to improve your drag free drift. Rather than carry a dozen or so leaders in my vest I can re-tie stuff on the stream to match fishing conditions. If I want to use a Harvey style leader I know how to do it since I have built them in the past. If I want swap from a 5X to a 3X I can cut into a leader and re-build that one too.

[Buddy Sanders]

Garb,

Not to make this too technical:

If you tie on some tippet material..and you can tie on as much as you want...how that effects your cast depends on your casting AND the type of presentation you are after...with dry flies it's probably more important to have a delicate turnover..for streamers, wets, or nymph fishing, not so much.

How 'often' you need to replace the tippet section depends entirely on how long it is and how often you change flies...you can see when it starts to get too short...the knot will get closer and closer to the end of the line...

Personally, I buy 7 1/2 foot 4X tapered leaders and tie on two to three feet of 4X or 5X tippet for most of my dry fly fishing..I can easily turn over three feet of tippet...and for really spooky fish, I've found that by concentrating I can delicately turn over up to six feet of 5X...I know some guys that use nine feet of tippet, and they can turn that over...I can't do that consistently yet (luckily, most of my dry fishing is for unpressured 'wild' fish...they tend to be a little less finicky).

For when I'm using nymphs, I'll use the same base 'leader', but go with 5X or 6X tippet, depending on the waters, but use a longer piece. This lets me get the whole section that will be under an indicator to a level piece of tippet....If I want the top fly to be four feet below the indicator, I'll tie on at least that much tippet....This isn't a 'delicate' presentation...hits the water like a handfull of gravel, but it's awfully effective for trout fishing.

There is no 'one correct way' to do all this....you'll find the ones you like will change as your experience grows.

Buddy