How many of you really pay close attention to your leader butt diameter vs the diameter of the end of the fly line?
What do you think the relationship should be?..e.g. should the butt should be between 2/3rds to 3/3rds the line diameter or what?
Do you think furled leaders are the same as a tapered mono?
Was that too bold of me, Duck ??
John
I just try to match the outfit with matched leader. Tapered leaders can be found at great prices if you shop. What I mean by matching leaders to outfits is that with my 10 wt I wouldn’t think of added a leader with a tippet of 5 or 6 X and when I fish with my 3 wt I wouldn’t consider putting a 0X tippet on it. I have lots of outfits to choose from like many fly fisherman; balance the tippet within reason and go have fun. While equipment selection is a big part of the hobby, these days it’s more important to me how I approach a pool and that I am wearing clothes that fit into my surroundings instead of a bright yellow shirt than if I fish 4X or 5X.
Depends on my application. If I want a leader that will turn over a fly I don’t care about butt diameter. I do care about flexibility. I don’t want a butt section that is to stiff or too soft. I like to use a leader butt that is about the same stiffness as the last foot or so of the line. So I create a butt with a material that flexes the way I want regardless of diameter. For many of my applications this happens to be Berkely Big Game mono in 30, 40, or 50 lb test. On a lot of my nymphing rigs I use 1X tippet or equivalent diameter mono for a butt section because the thinner line will sink faster. For still water nymphing when I hang a chironomid pupa or emerger beneath an indicator and am going to let it sit awhile I also use 1X butt section between the indicator and flyline since a heavier material is more likely to start sinking as the fly soaks and eventually pull the indicator down.
The fly line is the only thing that is standardize for determining weight, the fly rod is the makers opinion of what line weight is best for that fly rod. The casting action of the fly angler and what they are fishing and the fly rod they are using for can determine the leader’s butt diameter and the tip diameter of the tapered leader.
Light Fly Rods (1 through 4 weight) should have a butt section diameter that is 0.019 inch diameter, and the tip section between 4X (0.007 inch diameter) and 7X (0.004 inch diameter)
Medium Fly Rods (5 through 7 weight) should have butt section diameter that is 0.021 inch diameter, and a tip section between 2X (0.009 inch diameter) and 6X (0.005 inch diameter)
Heavy Rods 8 weight or heavier should have butt section diameter that at a minimum should be 0.023 inch diameter, and a tip section no smaller than 1X (0.010 inch diameter)
Fly Rods that are 6 weight and higher, can cast fly line up to two weight over the fly rods weight, which will also slow down the fly rod casting action, and cause a more open loop when casting, a line 1 weight less than the fly rods weight designation, will cause a quicker tip action in casting the line and tighter loop while casting. The angler does this at their own peril as it is a judgment call and not covered under any warranties by the rod manufacture.
I have an Excel spreadsheet from a local guide that includes instructions for tying up your own leaders. There are two general categories on it, light butt and heavy butt. Light butt 7.5 ft leaders all start with segments 0.019 diameter. Heavy butts start at 0.021. There are some extra heavy butts for bass and salmon that start at 0.023 based on length. His sinking leaders also start at 0.023 based on length. He has formulas for 6 and 7wt leaders that start with 40lb test and an 8.5 ft leader for 8 and 9 wt rigs starting with 36 lb test. He insists you be able to tie your own leaders when you go through his introductory fly fishing class. (PM if you would like a copy…)
(1) Who is it that determined the “should” as in “…Fly Rods (5 through 7 weight) should have butt section diameter…” for example ?? Has that person also determined what the butt section of a mono, fluoro, or thread furled leader “should” be ??
(2) How current is your information that overlining and underlining are “not covered under any warranties by the rod manufacture”? This statement is in conflict with a statement made in another thread on the subject of overlining rods which suggests that most, if not all, manufacturers do cover breakage caused by overlining.
John
How would a rod maker be able to determine if a rod broke because of “overlining?”
… the person making the warranty claim, of course.:roll:
Steve, can you provide the source of the above information? There is a lot of flexibility in this hobby and you can use whatever you want. Personally would never, ever put 6X tippet on my 7 wt. If I had to err to one side or the other I could see using a 3X tippet on my fast action 3 wt. Then it becomes about fighting the fish with the butt section of the rod and not the tip to apply more pressure. These are not huge points of disagreement and like I said there is a lot of gray and flexibility in this hobby. My above comments are just based on my opinion and not some manufacturer’s suggestions.
Back to the original topic of leader selection. This is a link that is short and to the point and even though I tend to buy tappered leaders I find the formulas both educational and enlightening: http://www.flyfishusa.com/tackle-tips/leaders/about-leaders.html
The other link that is more in depth is this link: http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/leadercalc/download.php
Gary Borger recommends a butt section that is 2/3 the diameter of the fly line. That works as a good starting point for me. I have verified that the leader starts to turn over poorly when you go much smaller than that.
Fly line diameter varies a lot, so charts don’t work very well for determining the correct butt diameter. The only way to be accurate is to measure the fly line with calipers. Commercial tapered leaders usually have too small of a butt diameter, which partially explains their mediocre performance.
Steve:
Can you provide data that show that only rods 6 wt and above “…can cast fly line [sic] up to two weight over the fly rods weight…”? Given the fundamental principles underlying the weight rating system, you should be able to cast a #15 line with a 0 wt rod. It is the AMOUNT of line thrown that is restricted. The limitation would be that amount of #15 line, plus a little extra, that would have a weight equivalent to the 30 feet of a #0 line. This is a matter of “equivalent” weight! Quite obviously, one could conceivably throw more of the #15 line by hand than could safely be thrown with the 0 wt rod.
It has been my understanding that “lineing up” causes the rod to load faster and increases line speed, which translates into “tighter loops”, NOT more open loops. Can you elaborate?
ducksterman, i don’t have near the trouble with leader butt diameter since i’ve gone to loops. Used to though and when using needle and crazy glue ‘knots’ to join flyline to leader, i’d have to keep butt diameter fairly close to the tip of the flyline diameter or i’d experience hinging. So to answer, between 2/3rds and 3/4ths line diameter worked best.
Furled i use loops and it doesn’t seem to matter much but i don’t have much experience there.
Cheers,
MontanaMoose
I tie a nail knotted 6" section of stiff brown Maxima that is as close to the diameter of the end of the fly line as possible. I then tie a perfection loop to this and connect the actual leader butt with a loop to loop connection to the Maxima. Both diameter and stiffness need to be considered since a stiffer thinner material can “turn over” or transmit energy more efficiently than a thinner softer material.
It is difficult to tie a good nail knot using stiff Maxima. So although I would like to be able to nail knot a .021" diameter Maxima to the end of a 5 wt fly line, I confess I use .019" instead. It works well for me although the Maxima may be thinner than the butt section of the leaders I loop to it.
I know that Gary recommends that step downs be no more than 2/3 diameter for leader sections, but I’ve not seen that he says that about the fly line to leader connection. What he does say in Presentation is that he uses .018" mono for 2-3 wt lines, .020" for 4 - 8 wt lines and .023" for 9-12 wt lines.
Using proportional diameter is inaccurate in fly lines because, unlike mono which has a uniform density, lines have a great variation in tip diameter when one consider the diameter difference between floating lines and type 6 sinking lines. For a material with a uniform density like mono, decreasing diameter by 1/3 at a step is about a 50% change in linear mass. To maintain a given change in “proportional linear mass” for a fly line to butt connection, one needs to use a fixed diameter of mono since the diameter of the end line may change but the mass per length of line (linear mass) does not.
Remember that in modern density compensated sinking lines, in order to for the line to sink level, the line material density goes up as the line gets thinner as it tapers toward the tip. The old sinking lines used to ride up at the tip because they were of uniform density, and the thinner tip had less mass (weight) to drag the fly down level with the rest of the line. So the tip of a density compensated sinking line will be denser than the body material. It is the relative mass of the tip of the sinking line that the leader must match. Thus a fixed ratio cannot be correct given the many different densities of sinking line line. A fixed diameter for a given line wt. will work better overall.
It’s a bit scary how Silver qnd I seem to think so much alike on so many things. What Silver said, is what I do also.
Kelly.