Anyone have experience using fluorocarbon instead of “regular” mono leader material for dries? If fluoro is designed to sink fast because if its greater density than the obvious answer is to use mono for dries. There is a cost savings and I have read of both applications.
Appreciate your thoughts and experience.
I used to buy fluorocarbon for nymphing because of all the hype. After about 2 years I couldn’t tell any difference between fluoro and mono and I quit buying it. JMO
fritz -
I don’t use fluoro leaders or tippet for dry flies because I intentionally use thread furled leaders that submerge with mono tippet that also submerges but don’t sink even small dry flies, like down to size 18. I’ve been using this combination for 19 years and have caught many, many thousands of trouts on freestone creeks and streams and rivers, a few tailwaters and spring creeks, and a few stillwaters.
I’m one of very few folks** who advocate for submerged leaders and tippets as superior to floating leaders and tippets, in most moving water situations, for the best possible drift of dry flies. Recently, I ran across a couple youtube videos where two different fellows expounded on their improved dry fly fishing results by adding a section of flouro tippet to their mono leaders to make their tippet less visible to the fishies, both quite excited about their discovery that resulted in noticeably more fishies in hand. One of those fellows was youtuber hooked4lifeca. His 6-14-2020 video is titled - Dry Fly Leader Hacks: a simple tip for significantly improving our dry fly fishing
If you want to achieve the same result without the additional cost of fluoro, you can add a bit of weight to your tippet, enough to submerge it without sinking the fly - which I believe was the technique suggested by the other youtuber, best I recall.
John
** Another formerly active BB member who was an advocate for submerged leaders and tippets for dry flies was Joanie Tomich out of Utah, AKA flygoddess.
Great thread subject,
Thanks for the thoughtful response John Scott
Take care!
I forgot to add in my above post that I use mono for dries and never tried using flouro.
I have used 6x and 7x fluorocarbon tippet for about 9 years. I have no trouble floating a sz 16, 18, or 20 dry ( comparadun style) using floro.
I personally think the main advantage of fluoro is abrasion resistance. I have a large spool of fluoro that I use for nymph fishing. But I use regular mono for dry fly fishing. You can use fluoro for dry fly fishing, but I don’t think it has any real advantage and it does cost more.
At my age I only go fishing on the rivers with a guide and in a drift boat. I always put on a fresh mono leader and I let the guides pick what they want for the tippet. Some guides use fluorocarbon tippets on dries. They feel that the tippet will sink just below the surface of the water and be less visible than mono. Other guides just use mono tippets. A short 18 to 24 inches of fluoro should not sink most dry flies, or if it does then either the fly is very small or needs to be treated. Most seem to use fluoro on nymphs.
Larry —sagefisher—
Larry. I have watched many U-tubes about the difference. What I have notices is that as Mono floats there is
a small “looping” in the leader that might be noticeable under water. Seems as though if the fluoro. were to be just under the surface the water then the “looping” would not be noticeable.
But then I’m not a fish!
just food for thought.
Crunchy
… well known angler who has advocated for adding a length of fluoro tippet to his mono leader to eliminate light reflection on the surface when fishing dry flies.
Kelly Galloup.
In an eight year old video on YouTube, on midge fishing in the winter, Galloup touches on this technique while using a very small midge dry fly fishing the Madison River. He does specify that for the fishing he is demonstrating, he tries to land the fly close to the fish he is targetting so he has a very short drift and the fluoro tippet does not sink the fly.
Galloup’s video is an enjoyable way to spend a few minutes in early winter, and includes a number of interesting observations about winter fishing generally, and midge fishing in particular.
John
I use fluorocarbon when I fish dries. Since I’m using 5x, 6x or 7x it doesn’t seem to impact the floating ability of small dries, size 20 is about the smallest I can fish and still see these days. To be honest I don’t think I have any mono tippet spools left. I use fluorocarbon when I’m fishing both warm and salt water. The “dries” are larger and even tippets of 25# fluorocarbon don’t impact how they float. Like John I use thread furled leaders for trout and warm water. Each spring I treat them with some type of floatant.
I tried fluorocarbon tippet when it first came out. It broke mid tippet on a large trout. I will go back to using horse mane for tippet before I use fluorocarbon again.Well, maybe not, but I still wasn’t happy with it.