I have four rod and reel sets. Depending on where I am and what I’m fishing for, and how long I’m there, I may use 2 or 3 of these in at various times in a week/weekend. Obviously, depending on what flies I’m using, and what fish I’m after, the leaders and tippet attached to them are going to be different for each rod/reel combo. I find myself scratching my head and trying to remember what leader/tipppet I had on last sometimes. If I take the 5wt. out and then don’t use it again for a couple of weeks or even a month or more, and have been using one or more of my other rod/reel sets throughout that time, when I get back to using the 5wt, I oftentimes can’t remember what size of leader and tippet I have on. Do you guys have any little tricks that you do to remember?
Sure, own a Fish Pond tippet guage.
RoyC
This may sound like a flipp answer but it isn’t meant to be one. I tie on new tippet when I get the rod out. It takes 5 minutes and I know it’s fresh, hasn’t been drug over rocks or whacked on tree limbs and I have the peace of mind that the only thing standing between me and landing the big fish of a lifetime is the pittiful quality of my knots. I don’t have to worry about some knick in the line or un-noticed wind knot (no doubt created by my sorry casting skills) causing the line to break.
Jeff
FF:
While a leader gauge is an obvious answer; they can be a notoriously inaccurate way to do much more than compare the relative diameter of different sizes of leader material. Gauges are only reliable IF you know the actual diameter of the tippet brand you use BEFORE hand.
Just because we all know that 5X is supposed to be .006"; doesn’t mean if you measure your unknown tippet and the gauge reads .006" that you have 5X in YOUR brand on the end of your leader. If you ever measured the actual diameter of tippet material with a micrometer and compared that measurement with the diameter printed on the spool you’ll know where I’m coming from. I’ve measured 6X that “mikes” out to a 5X diameter and so on. In other words you will have to measure the diameter of the tippet you are unsure of, PLUS the diameter of your spare tippet material in the size(s) you THINK it is to be sure you are guessing correctly.
What I do may seem like more trouble than it is but it works for me, is simple & cheap and solves two problems at the same time. Trust me, it’s less complicated than it sounds unless you are color blind :rolleyes::
I buy those little stretchy round Scunci elastic pony-tail holders that are sold in the shampoo aisle of most department & grocery stores. The ones I am talking about are thick and made of hosiery material, WITHOUT metal clips and are about 1" or so un-stretched and come in a pack in all the colors of the rainbow plus black, white and a few others.
Using the old Roy G. Biv way to remember the colors of the rainbow; (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) I assign a color to a tippet size:
Red - 3X
Orange - 4X
Yellow - 5X
Green - 6X
Blue - 7X
Purple - 8X (I skip Indigo since I’m not sure what color it is :D)
At the end of the day of fishing when I reel in my fly line, I stop short of reeling in the last 8" or so of tippet and take the reel off the rod. Then instead of winding in the last 8", I instead wrap the loose end around the base of the reel foot. I then choose a ponytail holder IN THE COLOR that corresponds to the tippet size I was last using and use it to secure the loose leader end by doing a doubled over wrap of the ponytail holder around and over the reel foot on to the reel foot base. If you get the small size of ponytail holders two wraps is all it takes to hold the leader securely around the reel foot.
Obviously the next fishing trip I immediately know what size tippet I had on and the ponytail holder also allowed me to easily find the end of my leader which has obvious benefits ;). I also use ponytail holders to color code my tippet spools so I can tell the size without my glasses!
I do experience a SLIGHT bend in the tippet material from wrapping it around the square base of the reel foot but it straightens right out by pulling it through my fingers or a leader straightener. I also haven’t noticed any damage to my tippets doing this and I do it with every size down to 8X.
I have been using this system for about 15 years now and it works like a charm for me.
Thanks for the replies.
Jeff, I know what you’re saying. The problem is this. Let’s say I was last fishing with a 6x tippet, I probably had a tapered leader on that ended in 5x and then tied 6x to the end of that. 2x meant my leader was probably a 1-2x leader depending what I had in my vest at the time. I don’t want to tie on a 6x tippet to a leader that ended in 2x or 3x.
I know I need to get a tippet guage. I’ve been saying it for a while now.
Bamboozle, I like it. I may modify it a bit but I see where you’re at and like the overall, “duh, why didn’t I think of that” that surrounds your method. Thanks.
Good one Bam:cool:
Before I switched to furled leaders…I would always start with a 2x leader…and add 3x [which is what I used mostly for tippet]…if I wanted 4x I would tie on the 3x then 4x…so if I saw one or two sections of tippet I would know what I had…not often would I go beyond 4x.
The key was knowing what leader I started with.
Jeff, I know what you’re saying. The problem is this. Let’s say I was last fishing with a 6x tippet, I probably had a tapered leader on that ended in 5x and then tied 6x to the end of that. 2x meant my leader was probably a 1-2x leader depending what I had in my vest at the time. I don’t want to tie on a 6x tippet to a leader that ended in 2x or 3x.
Understand.
I guess I should have said more. I pretty much the same setup on each of my rods all the time. On my 7wt rod, I almost always use 3X leader and range from 3X -4X tippet.
On my 5wt, I usually start with 4X leader and tippet ranges from 6X to 4X. When I’m going down to 7X (rarely, but on some streams I have to), I’ll tie on a section of 6X and then the 7X (or 5X then the 7X depending on what I pull out of my vest first).
On my 3wt, I usually start off with 5X and tippet is 5X - 7X.
So, whenever I go fishing with a given rod, I just tie on a new section of tippet. If I’ve tied on too many and the tapered leader is just too heavy now, I put on a new leader.
Jeff
I gotcha now. Yes, that would make it easier. My problem is if I’m fishing water where I know I’m gonna try a bigger streamer, heavier nymph set up, or will be fighting the wind, I’ll take my 6wt. Throughout the course of the day I may change between 2 or 3 leaders, and spools and possibly run the gamut of tippet from 1x-6x, depending on what I find when I’m on the water. By the time the next outing rolls around, I can remember the last one, but trying to remember exactly what I ended the day with just isn’t gonna happen. I’ve gotten a couple of furled leaders to try this year, so maybe my problems will be over anyways. I just wanted to see what you guys do, if anything, because I know I won’t completely eliminate tapered leaders from my game.
What I do is on the butt end I take a black Sharpie and make marks. 1 mark 1X, 2 marks 2X, 3 marks 3X and so on down the line. Works great for me. But may not for others. Just my 2 cents added in to some other great ideas. John
Reminds me of when I use to shoot sporting clays competitively. I use to take, 7 1/2, 8, 8 1/2, and 9s and sometime even those shot sizes loaded to different velocities for different specific targets. Then I became a very bad twiddler. Which is a choke changer from hell. I was more concerned with which choke and shell selection than I was at watching the flight of the target or the presentation of the target. The old addage about simpler is best, all things being equal, is true in many things.
In the end for me, I shot best focusing on the presentation of the target and how I would break the target instead of focusing on which choke tube or shell selection. I settled on two shell loadings and two chokes for everything that I shot.
You might think that my shotgun story has nothing to do with your question, but for me it is THE question. I would suggest simplifying your leader selection down to one or two and then having tippet available in different sizes and always start with fresh tippet. Simpler is best for me, you have to decide what works best for you. Good luck.
Rick
Bassman’s idea sounds good. I may have to try that.
I guess I’m more like Jeff in that I tend to match my leaders to my line so I won’t see a great variety of sizes on a particular setup.
One of my hard and fast, inviolate fishing rules is that I always – ALWAYS – tie on fresh tippet before I tie on the first fly of the day. It doesn’t matter if I fished the night before. Fresh tippet, every time. It’s a quirk of mine developed by getting burned once too often.
And since I pretty much know the range of leader sizes based on the line size, I can use my fingers to compare the diameter of the new tippet with the diameter of the existing leader. It’s pretty easy to feel the difference between the end of, say, a 4x leader and 5x tippet still on the spool. The difference between 2 steps in sizes is obvious.
If I’m tying tippet on a 5wt line and the leader is only 7-8’ long and the end feels like a 3x or 2x, I know it’s time to retire that leader.
If I cannot tell the difference in tippet size I assume the fish cannot either… If it feels too thin for what I am setting up I change it. If it feels too heavy I add to it…
I start each fishing day with a new leader, hence new tippet. But then I don’t go fishing every day.
I buy my Rio leaders in their 3 Pack containers which reduces the cost of each leader. But even if you bought them in the single pack, they would cost around $3.95 each.
If I drive to one of my ‘local’ lakes I will end up spending $15 for gas. If I drive to the Yakima River I will be spending around $90 for gas. My guided float trip is costing me around $375. To me it is far better to toss away the old leader and spend the $3.95 for a new one. You never know when you will get the ‘fish of a lifetime’ or you’re personal best on any particular body of water. It would he sad to loose such a fish because you used an old leader.
Larry 
—sagefisher—
I’m a big fan of furled leaders. Now, instead of carrying around a pocket full of leaders and a mess of tippet spools, I just have a few tippet spools. Makes life much easier. Cinsidering how bad my memory is, anthing that makes life simple is a blessing. Now what were we talking about?
Thanks for the replies and ideas, I appreciate it. I kinda like bassmans idea too.
I have Trout leaders and warmwater leaders. I have a very simple system. I use a 4x 9ft leader, snap off the tippet and tie on 5x and 6x. 2 knots (not counting wind knots) leave me with 6x. If I tie on 7x then there is three knots. I simply count knots to determine the tippet size.
all my warm water leaders are hand tied to 2x tippet all with blood knots. If I tie on 3 x then there is a extra surgeons knot. Again count the knots and I know.
-wayne
I have a question for Bassman:
If you start out fishing with a 5X leader; (one with five marks) at the end of the day if you happen to be cut back to 3X or extended to 7X for some reason do you rebuild your leader before you put your rig away so that the tippet matches the marks on the butt or do you re-mark the leader when you get back to the car? Or do you just switch leaders instead of adding or subtracting tippet? I ask because I thought of doing the same thing once but knew that almost every time I fish I end up with a different size tippet than what I started out with, which made using a leader with marks ineffective for me.
Maybe it’s the kind of fishing I do that often makes simplicity impossible for me but in my case the conditions I fish dictate my leader length, number of intermediate sections and tippet size. I may not change leaders often but I can change tippet size frequently during the course of a day’s fishing. I may fish one day starting out with 14 foot leader tipped out @ 7X; going through various leader lengths and tippet sizes throughout the day and finishing up by cutting back to 4X because I want to make a few casts at dark with a big streamer in a deep hole without changing leaders.
I will also often times add or subtract length to fine tune a leaders turnover when I change from a small to a larger fly or vise-versa which can result in me ending up with multiple sections of the same diameter leader material. That made knot counting an inexact science for me.
I also know that at the end of the day when it’s dark and I’m tired I don’t often times feel like rebuilding a leader to its original specs just so I can remember what it is the next time I fish with it.
But then again I’m lazy! 
Bamboozle, yes if I change tippet size I do remark my leader to reflect the new tippet. I almost always have a black sharpy with me where ever I go. John
Bassman, some more stupid questions:
At what point do you mark the leader? In other words if you start with 3X and go to 5X do you mark it then or do you wait until the end of the day and change the markings based on where you end up? And if you mark it when you change the tippet what do you do if you finish the day with a leader requiring less marks than you put on your leader? In other words it’s marked as a 5X but it’s a now a 3X.
And finally what happens if all the leaders you have end up with too many marks. Like in my case I may fish with leaders marked as 4X all day long in the winter but come summer those leaders are going to start out as 3X but end up mostly 6X & 7X which means at the end of the year I’d have all my leaders with the markings of lighter tippets. So do you completely take off the higher markings and re-mark them with the lower or just make new leaders?
Sorry for all of the questions but I considered this method before but never could figure out the best way to make it work for me.
Since I use small marks, if I change tippet, I just make those marks a solid spot and remark. I like to do it when I change tippet as that way I will not forget later. A sharpy fits in my vest well. This is just the way I do it, because it is easy for me. Others will find they may have a better way of keeping track of there tippet. This may not be the best way to do it, but it is the best way for me. If you change tippet a lot you can at the end of the day, take a very small amount of WD 40 and remove all of the marks then wipe down the leader and tippet real well and remark them. John