I am tring to piece together a saltwater leader (s) The last 4-5 feet will be 10#. I want to start with 40#, then 30#, then 20# and finally 10#. Sound right?
Can some of you salts lend your expertise her please?
How long is each section?
What knots are you using to join the sections-assume that I will use regular mono.
If I were to go to Fluoro, what knots will hold well in that leader material?.. I read that a three twist, 4 turn surgeon’s loop is not recommended for fluoro. Wondering why it won’t hold.
Any tricks to straighteneing out the heavier pound test mono so that it will lay out nicely?
That is a great piece of writing. I was a little surprised at the loop connection in the final section and intend to try that out…the concern is if it gives a “hinge” effect to the presentation. If not, that’s a good way to go. Thanks.
what are you fishing for? i fish for stripers and blues, and use a straight, 9 ft piece of 20lb flurocabon. I use a bimini to conncect leader to fly line, and an improved clinch to tie on the fly.
I will be fishing for Bones and Baby Tarpon. I too usually use straight tippet in the salt (Surf, Inshore reefs and Bluewater) and have for years. But that is mostly using a sinking head or intermediate line.
This time, which is new for me, I will be casting RioMax Floating Shooting heads. I need a leader around 12 feet long. I am going to try two types of leaders:
Furled 9 foot leader with a 3-4 foot straight tippet of 10#.
Knotted, Tapered, Old School leader as diescribed in my original post.
In both cases-the idea is to get a smooth turnover of the line at my maximum casting distance with lightly weighted flies.
Noticed you mentioned 10 pound test tippet and fishing for “baby” tarpon. I’d consider a shock tippet for those tarpon. They will wear out a 10 pound test section in no time, in my experience.
Even I know the 10# won’t cut it for the BT’s… …and thanks for the head’s-up in case I hadn’t known about the bite tippet requirement.
The way I am going on the BT’s is Furled leader (7 footer) ending in small ring with a length of 20# knotted to that and a 8-10 inch chunk of 30# as a 'Bite Tippet". Also knotting together a few old school tapers like this too…40#/30#/20#/30#.
Mostly worried about the longer lighter leader construction, since I have little experience with these. I’m a chuck and duck salt fly dunker who usually fishes the depths…not floaters on flats.
I’ve had the good luck to fish for those “baby” (always felt it was an inappropriate name for such a terrific fish) Tarpon in Mexico and Belize and observe the effects they have on the leaders.
In Mexico, fishing for BT is much like bonefishing, except for no wading. Shallow water flats and sight fishing for feeding fish. Usually I saw small groups of 2 to 4 fish but on occasion would see a large bunch of them. My personal favorite, go to fly for that fishing is a cockroach. Black death also worked good and sometimes a seaducer would be effective, but the best was the cockroach.
The casts were again much like bonefishing…mostly around 60 feet or less, requiring very quick delivery (minimum of backcasting), and very smooth presentation. Strip just like bonefishing and strip set the hook and hold on for the explosion. I used a 40/30/20/30 recipie in 9 to 10 foot lengths. These fish were not leader shy, but may be in Florida. I carried 8,9, and 10 weight rods w/floating lines, but used only the 9 weight. The fish ran from 15 to 30 pounds and the winds were usually blowing pretty good so the 9 weight worked just great. However, if you expect to tangle with larger fish, it won’t be so great.
On a personal note, I was privileged to experience one of the greatest single hours of my fishing life there one time bringing 10 Tarpon to the boat in one hour. What an experience.
I no longer call these fish “baby”…juvenile maybe, bonefish on steroids yes, teen agers ok, but no way these are baby fish. They give you the thrill of bonefishing, the jumps of their larger brothers and sisters, and the satisfaction that no other fish provides. Enjoy.
