Fluorocarbon furled leader

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
1

As almost everyone know by now, I had an opportunity to fish with Jack and Warren on the Elk River in TN this past weekend. Both guys make furled leaders and Jack gave me a fluorocarbon leader when we started out. I put it on the 4 wt. I decided to fish which had a floating line. The leader works like a mini-sink tip, which made retrieving it to cast a little bit of a challenge at first. The Elk is not very deep at the flow rate we were experiencing, mostly 3-4 ft. or less and using a guacamole stick bug and a blue assassin tandem I caught several brookies and a nice bow.

I have moved the leader to a heavier rod, but it is a tool I will continue to use for nymphing and streamer fishing.

2

I use a furled mono leader with flouro tippet for most all of my winter trout fishing. It seems to outperform furled thread leaders for me when the temps drop.

3

I don’t know what the heck is going on, but I have posted a response three times, without it registering. Let me try for a fourth time,

I., too, us a furled mono butt, then ad 2 ft of 2 wt fluor, 2 ft of 3 wt fluoro, 1 ft of 4 wt fluor, anf then whatever tippet I need.

Works for me.

4

I’m curious jg…why don’t you just furl a fluoro leader with those sections and add the tippet of your choice?

5

In what way does the furled fluro outperform the furled thread leader? The last couple of days I was thinking of just going to furled thread leaders. Now I wonder what the diff might be?

6

I don’t see any benefit between thread and mono/FC furled leaders. I only use the mono furled for management when it gets cold and begins icing up. But never had fish balk at thread leaders. I use Flouro tippet for all though.

7

Jim -

Thread leaders are much more supple than fluoro leaders. Also, my experience has been that fluoro leaders are fine for nymphs and wet flies, but will typically sink even a fairly large dry fly.

I don’t do much dry fly fishing in the winter but haven’t had a problem with thread leaders in below freezing temps. Contrary to Ralph’s experience, I’ve found that furled fluoro leaders used for nymphing in really cold weather will collect water and literally become a frozen rope - that is, a leader completely covered with a layer of ice and stiff as a board.

John