im new to fly fishing and jumped in with both to a big chunk of water, back bays and the ocean. ive got a st croix 9ft 9wt with a pflueger trion 1990 reel, 1 spool floating 1 spool 225gr, and an intermediate line i can put on, need another spool.
ive been using flourocarbon for leaders, either 5-9ft 15lb or 30lb, depending if blues were around. would it be advantageous to switch to a furled leader. they look interesting and i thought they might help my cast turn over quicker. i was thinking of trying to make some out of 6lb power pro, and some from 1lb mono, looking for a strenght just above my leaders. proble a 6ft with 2ft of flouro.
flys are attached with a no slip loop. all lines have loops in thier ends for quick change of leaders. leader has a double surgeon on line end.
im typically casting @ 50’ at the moment and the leader sometimes bunches at the end.
i think that about covers it. is that too much info? or did i miss something?
mdram…
“the leader sometimes bunches at the end”
You might be trying to cast a little too smooth without a fast enough STOP on the forward cast. This would cause the leader to loose momentum and bunch up at the end of the cast.
I find fishing the salt my leaders get chewed up and knicked a lot sooner than in fresh water, lots of wind knots. Most of the time I use a straight piece of mono, 14lb flourocarbon but if the wind is stong and the fly is really light or wind resistant I will use a two piece tapered leader 30 bloodknotted to 14 to get the fly to turnover better.
Sometimes I will go through 2-3 leaders an outing. It is easier just carrying one or two mono spools in the kayak and cutting to length as needed. There is nothing worse than farting with a leader and keeping the yak pointing strait in the surf while fish are breaking around you, like I had last week.
A furled leader sounds too complicated to construct and go through a few in a trip.
Who has time for stress when there are fish to catch.
Nick
The lighter & smaller the fly: the longer the leader. The heavier & larger the fly: the shorter the leader, just as in matching the fly size to the flyline in trout fishing. Still a general rule of thumb that works in the salt!
FWIW, in salt, I tend to stay with a 5-6 foot furled fc leader and about three feet of fc tippet. By the end of most day’s fishing I’m ready to bend on a new tippet.
aka Cap’n Yid.
Stev Lenon, 91B20 '68-'69
When the dawn came up like thunder