Braided line

[JohnScott]

... Caribe, about supple leaders and tippets. But first, note that you may well have more sophisticated fish in the Driftless area than we have out here in the west. Regardless, one of my principles for fly fishing is that I only fish for near sighted, colorblind, dumb and starving fishies. Improve the odds.

In his 1999, or thereabouts, book Wisdom of the Guides, Paul Arnold interviewed ten prominent guides from the Intermountain West and Northern Rockies. I am virtually certain it was Craig Matthews, but I gave away my copy of the book, which was gifted to me by Paul, so I can't be positive it was Matthews, who spoke to the need for long traditional mono leaders with fine tippets when fishing dry flies. The leader had to be long and the tippet fine to overcome the dragging and / or steering effects of the stiff butt and relatively stiff mid sections of the leader on the dry fly, i.e. the negative impact on presentation inherent in the mono leaders of that era.

Fast forward, not all that many years, to the expanding universe of very supple thread furled leaders and supple tippets to improve presentation. They have been my staple for dry fly fishing since learning how to make them in 2004.

A couple experiments that I did some time ago speak to the advantages of thread furled leaders and some of the commonly held thoughts about how fish are put off by fly lines and visible leaders.

In 2010, I was doing quite a bit of fishing with a Tenkara rod. One day I was fishing on the Bitterroot River, which is fairly heavily fished and isn't known for a lot of near sighted, colorblind, dumb and starving fishies, with a light colored furled thread Tenkara line / leader with several feet of tippet. Over a few hours, I had managed to shorten the tippet and when I was about finished fishing, somehow I had it down to not much more than a foot. I saw some fish rising, so I just tied on a fly to the foot long tippet, and proceeded to catch some fishies. Hmmmmm.

One of my homebrew 11' or so Tenkara line / leader rigs was a bright orange. One day planning to nymph on the East Fork of the Bitterroot with a big stonefly nymph, I decided to experiment with the Tenkara line / leader with the nymph tied as close to the end of the bright orange leader as I could get it. A couple inches, at most. That was the most difficult nymph rigged I ever cast - huge, slow, open overhead loops to get the fly out over the water, and then a long, slow agony waiting for all that sink resistant thread to let the nymph get down to where there might be some fish. After a half dozen fish landed, I figured the experiment had worked and went to a more "traditional" nymph rig. I think the success of that experiment was because the fish took the bright orange leader as the largest San Juan worm attractor they had ever seen, but went for the easier to swallow morsel.

Anyway, I don't advocate for one foot long tippets off thread leaders for dries or two inch tippets off bright orange leaders for nymphing - but I do advocate for experimenting.

John

[Caribe]

John,
Great story...I love the reference to the need to target the "near sighted, colorblind, dumb and starving fishies". Some years ago I was fishing a winter midge hatch with my nephew. He tied on a size 18 dry with 8 inches of tippet on one of my furled leaders. He promptly placed a perfect cast and and caught a 12 inch brown on his first cast. He ended the conversation with "and what were you saying about my short tippet?" Granted, we were fishing private water in the Iowa driftless that does not get fished very often, but he still caught the fish with a 8 inch tippet. I think our fishing techniques are developed by the habits of the trout in the water we fish. Thank God for near sighted, colorblind, dumb and starving fish, otherwise I would have to lie a lot more about my fishing adventures. I like your quote..."the fish are always right". It sums up our conversation very well.
caribe

[JohnScott]

... I think our fishing techniques are developed by the habits of the trout in the water we fish.

Yes, indeed.

John

[JohnScott]

...

Anyway, I don't advocate for one foot long tippets off thread leaders for dries or two inch tippets off bright orange leaders for nymphing - but I do advocate for experimenting.

John

Last time out, I was using an FEB Salmonfly dry to nymph with a small dropper. The dry was tied just over 3 inches from the tippet ring on a light colored thread furled leader.

So today, when I started fishing, I decided to do some of that experimenting, and fished the FEB Salmonfly as described above - 3" from the tippet ring.

Well, holy moly, first cast a small trout hit the fly. Several hits by small fishies on the pointless fly and then a solid tug by a larger fish. Over about an hour experimenting with this set up, had about eight small fish and half a dozen mature fish hit the fly. Only a few held on much longer than a few seconds, but the largest one ( looked to be in the 16-17" range ) held on for 10-15 seconds before going bye-bye.

Like I said, holy moly - whatever that actually means.

John

[JohnScott]

... to yesterday's post about the experiment with the three inch tippet.

The temps were in the low 30's, no wind, the shelf ice from several days ago was gone, no slush ice where I fished although there was quite a bit just a few miles upstream, fishing in a shaded area, ice in the guides constantly for the first hour or so, and the water was really cold but much lower again and running very clear. Altogether not great conditions for fishing dry flies, which made the success of the experiment even more surprising.

One of the advantages to playing tag in these conditions is that you don't have to wet your hands and handle fish in and out of the water. My hands were cold enough even wearing gloves, which doesn't make for great casting. But you got to do what you got to do - have some fun.

John

[Caribe]

John
I wish you would have not shared your short tippet story. It seems like right when I think I got this furled leader stuff all figured out, the fish, once again prove me wrong. I do like your idea for keeping the hands dry on cold days. Holding the fish is definitely overrated.
caribe

[JohnScott]

Tig -

P.S. The question whether such a leader would float gets to another topic - floating vs. submerged leaders - that has been roundly discussed on this BB in the past. There have been few advocates for submerged leaders of any kind, but a lot of folks do seem to prefer floating leaders just because that is what they learned on and are stuck to.

Since posting this observation regarding submerging leaders and tippets, I've run across two YouTube videos that commented on submerged tippets. ( I may have commented on the first one previously on this thread but I'm not inclined to check it out. )

One fellow, can't recall who it was or the title on the video, indicated he had recently found the secret to catching more trout. He found that a floating tippet made some light reflection on the water which he thought might put off the trout, so he decided to put a bit of weight on the tippet to submerge it and discovered that that change immediately upped his take count.

Notably, Peter Charles, who has published all kinds of stuff on fly fishing over quite a long time and goes by hooked4life.ca on YouTube, indicated in one of his videos that he had observed floating tippet cause some light reflection on the water surface and found that adding a length of fluro tippet ( I think it was something like 12-24" ) which would submerge the tippet but not sink the fly, obviously eliminated the light reflection problem and increased his hook ups.

I recently broached this subject with Brian Fleschig ( spelling ) at Mad River Outfitters in Columbus OH after watching him have a very poor day on Slough Creek in YNP last fall. His video showed his floating leader clearly visible not that far from what appeared to be a rather high floating hopper pattern - lots of foam. I suggested that a low riding pattern, like the FEB Hopper, fished off a submerged tippet would likely have been a more successful rig. Brian hasn't commented, and I doubt that he will. What came through on his video of his experience on Slough Creek was that he was more interested in selling ( rather expensive ) goodies than catching fishies.

John

[JohnScott]

Notably, Peter Charles, who has published all kinds of stuff on fly fishing over quite a long time and goes by hooked4life.ca on YouTube, indicated in one of his videos that he had observed floating tippet cause some light reflection on the water surface and found that adding a length of fluro tippet ( I think it was something like 12-24" ) which would submerge the tippet but not sink the fly, obviously eliminated the light reflection problem and increased his hook ups.

John

... Galloup to the ( short ) list of folks who advocate adding a section of fluoro tippet to a mono leader when fishing dry flies to eliminate any reflection of light by the leader on the surface of the water near the fly.

In his eight year old youtube video on winter fishing with midges on the Madison River, Kelly makes this point, along with a number of other observations on winter fishing and fishing midges. Investing a few minutes watching Kelly's video is an enjoyable and worthwhile way to pass some time on a winter day.

John

[Tig]

I noticed this thread was active again so I read it over. I had forgotten that I even posted it originally. I read in here where John S. says he had a seniors moment and had made a mistake about something. Well I was able to get another look at the leader that I was talking about and it was not at all how I remembered it. Actually it was very simple. It is made of tying thread, Daniels 3/0 waxed mono cord. Whenever I make furled leaders on a traditional board
I always have 6 strands making up the last section where the tippet ties to. I have never figured out how to make it less than 6 (and with thread I,m not sure I would want to).
The leader in question as I stated earlier is 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 feet in length. It is made up of 6 strands for the whole length. Maybe 8 I have never taken one apart to count but the diameter size looks to be 6. There are no tapers in it. That's why I couldn't see any (duh). There is a strobe loop at both ends. That is the great mysterious furled leader. One thing about getting older, you learn more. If I had remembered how this leader was made in the first place we wouldn't have all the fine discussion that has been generated by trying to figure something out that doesn't exist.
What I have done is played around a little with this leader. I added a butt section approx 10 inches long consisting of of 11 strands. Haven't had a lot of opportunity to use it but did like how it worked on dries ( 16 & 18 caddis).
I figured out how my friend uses them for nymphing. The 4 1/2 are the preferred length. Treating them helps. The tippet length has to be right for the depth of water (and speed of current) so that the fly is close to the bottom without getting snagged. There is a shorb loop in the leader and the tippet (flouro) is added loop to loop style. Indicator yarn is inserted in the shorb loop before the two loops are snugged up. The drawback here is that the indicator material is not adjustable.
You have to know your water or make your tippet longer so that you can trim it back to the right length after a few test drifts. If set up properly the tippet should hang almost straight down in the water under the leader. I am not certain but he might add a small amount of weight to the tippet, perhaps tungsten putty which can be easily adjusted. I am quite sure he adds no weight in the construction of his nymphs. He has been fly fishing for over 45 years and had been guiding full time
for more than 20. Still guides part time and is very successful. There is probably more to this system than I can figure out but that is the basics. Maybe not terribly new to some but he says since using it he has greatly increased his clients success.

Thanks again for all the help and research from those who responded. Sorry for the blooper but that is my favourite part of the movie.
By the way I am still playing with braided line, just have to figure out the "slippery" factor.