Foambug,

First, welcome.

You can tie effective leaders out of any regular monofilament. The stuff they make specifically for leaders, though, seems to work a bit better. It's stiff where it should be stiff, more limp where that's needed, etc..

I've seen 'leader kits' at places like Cabelas that give you all the sizes so that you can build them to suit. I've actually used the Maxima kit, and it works well.

If you need information on the 'formulas' for leaders, you can find a lot of that information here. Just do a seach.

Good Luck!

Buddy