Line / leader color and tippet length
Chris Stewart started a thread on tippet length and line color on the Tenkara Forum which started an interesting discussion, but is probably more an FAOL Forum topic than a Tenkara Forum topic. Follow the link to Chris' thread.
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/s...and-line-color
While finishing my second cup of coffee this morning, it occured to me that I had a bright orange thread furled leader rigged on one of my 4 wt reels. I got to thinking about Chris' thread and wondered what would happen if I fished a big old rubber legs off that leader with a very short tippet, say a foot or less, but with my 9' for 5 wt TFO BVK.
Checked the streamflows on a creek I know well. The big surge from a few days ago had settled down. Flows were high but stable. Likely the creek would be off color, but a good amount of water to fish.
Checked the weather forecast. Temps not bad. Not likely to be any precipitation. But the winds were forecast at 21 mph out of the South, which would mean casting upstream directly into a strong breeze. Not fun to start with, and not very appealing fishing a not so friendly casting combination of a heavy fly on a thread leader.
But ... what the heck. All in the name of science, right ??
Started about noon. The water was off color, maybe three to four feet of visibility, but the level was favorable, as expected. For the experiment, I would have prefered the normal clear water conditions, but clarity was good enough to give the fishies a good look at the bright orange leader close by the big stonefly nymph.
Things started pretty slowly, fishing the nymph off about 12" of tippet. Slow enough that I really wondered how things would turn out. But then I caught a fishy.
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...002_edited.jpg
And then another. And another. Not so bad a place to fish after all, and at least the experiment was not doomed to failure, or was it.
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...003_edited.jpg
After a while, and four fishies on the 12" tippet, I decided to cut back to about 6" of tippet, partly since I was going to be on some shallower water and partly because I wanted the bright orange leader to be really close to the fly, and then to about 4".
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...006_edited.jpg
Over the next several hours, I fished another eight stretches of the creek with the 4" tippet set up, caught fishies in five of them, and ended up hooking over twenty fish and landing most of them. At this point, I'll just let the pixels tell the story.
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...007_edited.jpg
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...h/P3120013.jpg
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...014_edited.jpg
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...016_edited.jpg
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...017_edited.jpg
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...018_edited.jpg
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...020_edited.jpg
I guess this doesn't really prove anything, except on one particular day on a particular creek over several stretches of water a bunch of fishies weren't at all bothered by having a rather bold orange furled leader only about 4" from the nymph them wanted to eat.
On the other hand, maybe it does mean something in more general terms. Think I'll have to do another experiment soon on a different creek.
John
P.S. The forecast breeze held off until after I finished. That made casting the big fly on a thread furled leader with a small thingamabobber manageable - not particularly fun, but manageable.
That is a fair question ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DarrinG
Interesting. One question I have is, how much fishing pressure does that water receive? And how much pressure over the winter? I think that could be a legitimate question as to how readily they would take the fly with the line/furled leader that close.....
... and the best I can say is that I've fished it about twenty times since 12-21-11 and have seen others on the same stretch of water only a couple times. It is rare that I see sign of others having fished on it on days that I didn't, that is, foot prints in the snow or mud.
Having said that, I doubt that pressure is much of a factor. I know this creek, I know where the fish are, I know what they like to eat and how to present it, and when it comes to confidence, I have a lot of confidence in my ability to find them and feed them. That's why I chose this creek for the experiment - which was not about nymphing with furled leaders, but about tippet length when using a brightly colored line / leader.
When you think about it, with only 4" of tippet, the fishies had to practically swim through the end of the bright orange leader to get to the nymph. If only one or two fishies did that in one or two places, it would be clear that the leader was off putting. But when over twenty fishies do that in six different places, it is clear that the presence of the leader doesn't deter them from going for the food item.
I'm not suggesting that one experiment on one day on one creek proves anything. But maybe it does indicate that a long held belief in long leaders and fine tippets isn't quite as important as most seem to want to make it.
Perhaps this discussion will encourage others to do similar experiments which will lead to something more definitive.
John
1" or so is about as short ...
... as I can get the tippet. To get it that short, I had to tie the fly on the tippet first and then very carefully form the clinch knot to the tip ring in the furled leader.
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...005_edited.jpg
That's the largest of the six fish that took the fly fished off the 1" tippet. The water was down just a bit, and the clarity was better. But using a longer leader made controlling the fly and achieving depth at distance problematic. Not sure if the clarity and improved visibility of the leader to the fishies made much of a difference since the catching was okay in shallower water.
The short tippet to the bright orange / yellow blended leader was not the major issue, best I could tell. Getting the thread furled leader down deep enough to catch the fishies in the deeper runs and slots was the biggest factor, and was more like work than fun.
That about does it for this experiment. Glad I did it. One of the lessons is that thread furled leaders really do have a resistance to sinking compared to mono and / or fluoro leaders when nymphing.
John
P.S. After I changed to my regular set up with 2X mono leader / tippet, the catching picked up quickly. The fly was getting down where it needed to be, and a dozen plus trouts got on it, including a grand slam to include cutts, bows, browns, and one bull trout.