Quote Originally Posted by DarrinG View Post
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