OK, after reading about these furled leaders I made a jig and made up a couple of these in both mono and thread over the week end. They are a little over 7 feet long and seem to lay out all right and not twist or anything, but I haven’t had the chance to try casting them yet. My question is how do I fish them. I made 3 from a thread, not just sewing thread, that is as heavy as most 6/0 and 2 from 2lb Trilene and 2 from 4lb Vanish. Do I need to treat them with Mucilin or Gink so they will float, or not worry about it. I will be going to Bennett Springs soon and want to really try them there. I will probably be stripping Cracklebacks and wollyburgers and fishing chamois flies and nymphs or glow balls under an indicator. It doesn’t sound like there will be much dry fly fishing but I can still hope. Thanks in advance for all of your wonderful answers and advice to my silly questions:lol:
When I go out, I always have at least two. One heavily dressed with Watershed and Mucilin for dries, and one naked for nymphs & streamers.
First you want to add a tippet, I like to use 3 sections of monfiliment or florocarbon that step down in size. To build a 5x leader with a 9’-6" total length I would start with the 7’ furled section and add 6" of 1x, 6" of 3x, then 18" of 5x. This means I have at 30" of nearly invisible tippet between my fly and the more visible furled section. Also I can add additional tippet pieces as I change flies to extend the life of my leader. If I make steps that are larger than 2 tippet sizes I find the knots don’t hold well. Keep in mind that you can’t cut into a furled leader the way you can with regular leaders, the furled stuff will untwist if you cut into it. Adding even a small 12" tippet will let you change flies without cutting in to the furled section. You can replace the tippet stream side without risking an untwist by leaving the old knot on the tag end if the leader. I clip off the old tippet close to the knot, then tie in a new tippet with the old knot still in place, when the new knot is tightened I clip off the tag ends, including the old knot.
You also need to find good way to atttach the furled leader to the fly line. I have not been able to get the furled leader to make a good nail knot. Instead I use a 6-8 inch piece of heavy mono (like the butt end of an old mono leader) This gets nail knotted to the fly line, then I add the furled leader using a surgeons knot or a loop to loop connection. If I know I’m not going to change leaders much that day I like the surgeons knot, I use 5 turns on the mono tag end but only 3 or 4 turns on the furled tag end. This helps make a more compact knot that will slid through the guides well.
If want to swap out leaders during the day I prefer the loop to loop connection. I tie a perfection loop in the end of the mono butt and use a pre-made loop at the furled side. I make the loop in the furled section using the ‘shorb loop’ method or by doubling back the end and whip finishing with tying thread and a coat of Plio-Bond or Flex Cement. The tiny end loop that is left from leader manufactor doesn’t work well, it’s too small and tends to close up as the leader is fished
If I am fishing dry flies I like to grease my furled leader stream side with a good paste floatant, same stuff I use on my flies. If I start with a nice dry leader and work the paste in well my leader it will float all day. (note: all my leaders are made of UNI thread, this absorbs the floatant well. I have no experiance with leaders made of mono) I have tried pre-treating the leader but it works best if I treat it right before I fish. For nymphs or streamers I don’t do anything, just fish it.
For nymphing while float fishing I often need to adjust for changes in depth, water depth might be 10-20 feet on some sections of the river then 2-4 feet on others. As a result I am alway cutting into the leader to add or reduce length. I don’t like cutting up my homeade furled leaders so I might just use a standard mono leader. Besides the elegent casting advatage of the furled leader is kind of lost when you have a strike indicator, 2 flies and a bunch of split shot hanging on to it! Deep nymphing rigs just suck to cast, they tangle easily and it’s harder to undo tangles in the furled stuff.
Sometimes I pre-tie nymph rigs at home, complete with split shot and flies. I store them by wraping them around a small foam cylinder (pieces cut from a 2" dia. pool toy) This way I can swap from dry flies to deep water nymph rigs quickly using a loop to loop connection. I make the loop on the fly line side extra large to facilitate fast changes. I can pass the whole foam cylinder through the loop, then unroll the leader. Works very well on my little pontoon boat where messing with a 12’ plus leader can be hard to manage. Once it’s tied in there is no problem casting a long leader, it just too small of a boat to have 12’ of loose leader laying around without it catching on something.
Unless you plan on fishing dry flies I wouldn’t worry too much about floatant. Helps get the wet flies down there better in my experience to have a soaked leader. The mono leaders will behave fairly neutrally.
Now here is one idea; for smaller wet flies the leader can be an indicator. Grease it up good so it stays high and you can watch it while stripping in the fly. I have had good success with this idea. A fellow angler showed me that a few years ago and I have found it quite useful in the right circumstances.
Tie on some tippet and go fish.
John
That’s the simple answer. It seems most people prefer their furled leaders to float when they are fishing dry flies. A minority of us prefer a furled leader that submerges when fishing dry flies. That depends on the material used, but the thread leaders I make and use submerge but will not sink a dry fly, down to at least a size 18 or 20, depending how how the dry fly is constructed.
A furled leader that submerges is absorbing currents in THREE DIMENSIONS. A furled leader that floats is absorbing currents in two dimensions. For most situations, the submerged leader gives the best drift possible. For some situations, a floating leader will have advantages for casting and mending, but seldom, if ever, for a better drift.
Fishing nymphs just requires adding the nymph to the tippet and having at it. Or you can position an indicator on the furled leader, or trail the nymph off a dry fly. If you use an indicator that has a loop at the bottom, you can make a loop in the furled leader where you want the indicator, slip that loop through the loop in the bottom of the indicator and then over the indicator, forming a “handshake knot” between the two. For most situations, the indicator will stay in place. Adjusting the position of the indicator on the leader is very simple.
Furled leaders can be used for fishing big nymph rigs, if they are a beefed up version. I make and use a thread furled leader with a 14-12-10 configuration. Using that leader with a fast action ( Sage Fli ) 9’ for 7 wt, it easily turns over an indicator with two size 6 4XL weighted stonefly nymphs. With relatively tight loops.
I’ve used furled leaders a few times for streamer fishing, but have a distinct preference for a short piece of 2x tippet attached loop to loop to a full sinking line for most of my streamer fishing.
It’s worth noting that you have actually made 2 different kinds of mono furled leaders. One from standard nylon monofiliment (2lb trilene) and one from florocarbon monofiliment (4lb vanish). The furled nylon line will float or come very close to it. I use furled nylon leaders when I want my flies to stay on or fairly close to the surface of the water example-poppers, sliders, drys, and so forth…
The furled florocarbon will sink. Like a rock. I use this type of leader most of the time when I am fishing nymphs, streamers, or anything else I want to get a little deeper in the water column.
For tippet I generally use a 3 foot long chunk of line(although I have used as much a 6 feet), usually 2-4 pound test for panfish, 4-8 for bass that I connect loop to loop with the tippet. Follow the same rules with the tippet as you do with the leader itself, floro to sink and nylon to float. If it doesn’t really matter, I prefer to use floro.
hope this helps,
Fish
I really appreciate this info. I assume by an indicator that has a loop at the bottom a “thingamabobber” would qualify? That’s what I use and I was wondering how it would work with a furled leader. Hopefully it’ll stay put, a problem I have when using it on a regular mono leader.
Well I just got back from Bennett Springs and did have a chance to fish the furled leader from the Vanish and was favorably impressed. I mainly used it with about a 30 inch tippet of the same 4lb Vanish to strip Cracklebacks, and you are right, boy did it sink. That made it pretty tough to roll cast just to get the cast started but also really loaded things up with just a standard pickup when there was room. I was surprised at how well it really did turn things over and only had one little wind knot in the tippet when trying to force it into a wind. One thing I need to do or learn a better way is making the loops on the ends. I just tied a surgeons loop in both ends and put a dab of Knot Sense on them and I really didn’t like the results with large hard knots. I think that with thread I can figure out the schoorb loops but the mono seems really tight. I didn’t have the chance to try the thread leaders on dries but i believe they will work well. I probably won’t have anything further to report until the April trip and by then I will have figured out the loops, so thanks everyone for the advice and for posting all the info on make these things.
bowmaker1 -
Here’s a link to some discussion on the Shorb loop.
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?t=26866
It is possible to incorporate or add a tip ring into the tip end of the furled leader. Makes it easier to change tippets. I’m sure there were some discussions here on the BB on how to do that, but I don’t recall just when / where.
John
It will be soooooo much easier when you learn how to put a Shorb loop in the butt end … and the tippet end, if you’re not going to use the tippet rings. Just hand shake them puppies, and go fish! You may also find 5’ or even 3’ leaders to “fit” Bennett Spring better. Crackle backs work all year round, as do caddis, ants, and midges.