I’m curious as to how many of you use furled leaders and prefer them…
Before I start buying bunches of mono and everything else and make leaders, I’d like to determine which types of leaders I want to stick with. I never heared about furled until recently, and never thought about it until right now, well…30 seconds ago.
What are the pros and cons? Everyone has been very helpful with all my other noob questions, and since I’m just about set on leaders, I need to know about furled. One last question though, do furled follow the same pattern of the other? Such as 60% of 20lb, 20% of 10lb etc etc?
OttoDita; might be a good idea to buy one and try it before you invest in all the materials. I bought three different sizes from Feather-Craft and used the 7’ on French Creek ¶ this past weekend. It turned over my roll-cast perfectly and laid out the fly well when I could get a short cast in.
Like all things fly fishing there are LOTS of opinions on furled leaders. Take Normand’s advice and do a search on this site. After you digest all of that; you really have to try a few to make up your own mind whether or not you will like them for your particular type of fishing.
I will say that I don’t think that a furled leader is the answer to all fly fishing problems nor do I think it is the only leader worth using; but I will say that I use them and LOVE them! But it is the THREAD furled leaders I am crazy about, not the mono versions but I use them only for trout fishing so your mileage may vary if you are pursuing other species.
I recommend you invest a few bucks and buy a mono furled leader from anyone who sells the Blue Sky leaders or try one of the Feather Craft mono leaders. After that, ask someone who furls to make you a THREAD furled leader to try as well. The best advice I can offer you is DON’T make up your mind until you try a THREAD leader. I don’t furl so I can’t help you there but there are plenty who do that may offer their creations for sale to experiment with before you take the plunge into making them yourself.
Made my own furled leader at the beginning of last year. Thanks FAOL!!!
That is all I use ever since. Mono, thread and PowerPro superbraid are the materials I’ve tried so far. Thread is awsome for anything below 5wt. Power pro for bigger rigs if you want floating leader. mono for sinking.
I’ve been using my own hand tied mono leaders for over 20 years.
I use probably a dozen different lengths ,diameters and tapers, maybe more.
For me the hand tied leaders are a lot more practical and I have little reason to switch to the “latest thing”
Then again, I used a fiberglass rod until well into the 90’s before I got one of those new fangled graphite poles.
:rolleyes:
I fish only for trout, and for everything other than big nymphs, I use thread furled leaders. When fishing big weighted nymphs I will go to mono, usually a home made knotted tapered leader. A heavy duty thread furled leader will handle a size 6 weighted stone fly nymph, for example, but it is a bit more work to get it where you want it, and if the wind is blowing it can be a real hassle.
There are several fairly recent threads on the Bulletin Board that probably will give you more information and insight into the process of making and using furled leaders than any other resource you will find. I think you will be amazed at the answer to your question.
There are also several of us who would be happy to send you a variety of leaders, if you ask. But I would encourage you to go through the previous threads on the subject before asking.
As to the economics, there is a modest start up cost, but after that furled leaders are probably less expensive than hand made mono. The thread leaders I make cost about $.35 each, and last for many, many days of fishing.
Shane
PM me your mailing address and I’ll send you a 7’ thread furled leader to try.
There is about 20 yards of Uni 6/0 in one so a 200 yard spool should make 10 leaders!
A Thread leader can be treated with flotant and will turn over longer tippets.
I’ll apologize up front for hijacking this thread…Jim, I was on the French this last Saturday using a 5 ft furled leader. Got there about 11:00 or so, when were you there? How’d you do?
Thanks a lot everyone. I did some research lastnight on the whole process. All I have to say is WOW. Looks fairly simple, as the process, but I’m sure what it looks like and what it is are two different things. I Almost pounded some nails into the hard wood flooring here to give it a try. But, my wife was awake at the time:) I’m going to give a leader a try and see how I like it compared to the hand tied tapered. Jack is very generous and going to send me one so I’ll use it when I head out for the first time and see how it goes. I kind of want to make furled instead, since I hate tying knots, and also hate trying to decide what lb test to go with for leader tapers, it confuses me so much. But you’re all very right.
Jack, will send it now. Thanks so very much, very appreciated.
Shane
Jack Hise (Sir) and Kaboom1 got me started with using furled leaders last year. I even went as far as buying Kathy Scott’s dvd and building my on board and making my own furled leaders. Up until that time I mainly used tapered mono leaders by Froghair and Orvis. Now I have choices to better fit the situation I am fishing.
PAngler: we were there from about 9am to 12:30pm. I belong to the Ray Neirle SJ Chapter of TU and it was the first of our weekend day trips. Otherwise; the other 99% of my fly fishing is warmwaters all over south Jersey. Got two, one about 14" the other about 8". Always love when I don’t get skunked.
At 11:00 we were still at the bend in the creek by the road working our way slowly toward the covered bridge.
The furled leader I told Otto about was the first I had used and I was surprised at its performance; how well it turned over several types of flies.
By the way, I used several trout flies with no success, so I tied on a #12 wooly bugger made with peacock chenille…bang, bang!
Shane
The Leader will go in tomorrows snail mail along with some diagrams of my board and the thread layup sequence. I make all mine with tippet rings now but a shorb loop works well.
I also recommend the Kathy Scott DVD if you decide to make them yourself. ($15.00 + $2.00 shipping)
Not to hijack this thread, but this is to Jack Hise and WarrenP…I’m finally going to have the chance to try one of the furled leaders you guys sent me in a couple of weeks. I’ll let you know how things turn out. Thanks again.
Ken
If you want an idea what home made furled leaders can do on the right water at the right time, go to Fishing Reports and go to Big Lost River. I used only a furled leader on Monday and today - a six foot thread leader with about 3’ of 4x tippet to the dry and another 15-18" of 4X to the dropper. When fishing with an indicator, I put it at the end of the furled leader and add an appropriate length of tippet for the depth I want to fish.
I was fishing with a Winston Ibis 7’6" for 3 weight - it is a pretty fast rod, and turns over the dry / dropper combination and the indicator / nymph rig beautifully.
Thanks again Jack, that’s very generous of you, I appreciate it.
I checked out the thread, I’m very convinced I’d like to use furled. Just a few things I’m not sure about and I’m not sure how to ask what I’m confused about yet haha.
Thanks again everyone, without FAOL I definitely wouldn’t be fly fishing!!
Shane
I read that a few times about furled. I’m highly leaning towards furled. One thing I’m not sure on is the tapers, how does it taper, how do you gauge the taper etc. That’s confusing me. Such as if I were going to make a leader for big fish and needed something longer, say 10’, I’m not sure how to know how to make the leader. Where with hand tied, you know what mono’s to use etc.
With furled the the process doesn’t look too hard. I’m sure it takes getting used to, to get decent. I guess what I’m trying to say is furled seems more like what I want, a bit easier to understand maybe. But again, with the questions I ask myself like the ones above, I dunno. Still trying to read up on them. Just been busy the last couple days here.
Shane;
The leader I am sending will turn over 4 - 6’ of tippet so there is your 10’!
The taper is in the layup as you will learn. Mine are 12/10/8/6 taper. This can be adjusted to a 16/14/12/10 taper with just a few flicks of the wrist but I don’t want to confuse you further!
