JC’s article on tying your own tapered leaders combined with his very creative “figure eight” knot invention has me inspired to discuss the subject at our club. I have an old Orvis Kit but lost the formula sheet. Info on the web concerning formulas is precise and involves many small sections to get the proper taper. From the distant past,I recall that there were tapers involving only three sizes developed by Charles Ritz many years ago. Does anyone have access to this info.?
Ray,
I can’t comment on Charles Ritz but I can comment on the Gary and Jason Borger Uni- Body leaders.
Borger’s simplifed leaders have been a real help to me. They work SO WELL that I have almost given up on tying leaders with more than 3 or 4 different diameters of monofilament. Midge leaders excepted, but truly, for a 9’ 4 or 5x leader that I do most of my trout fishing with, the Uni-Body stuff is GREAT. I was pretty skeptical at first, but experience has proven their value.
It’s basically a leader set up where by you use the same butt and middle section of the leader and vary the tippet length and diameter to handle the job at hand. Nothing new there, but the butt and tipped are basically two pieces of line, the tipped ends up being one or two more. My entire leader can be as simple as two blood knots and they work, as mentioned, remarkably well.
LigonierA1, Thanks for the reply. I think we’re zeroing in on it. It could possibly be that your leader manufacturer has based his product designs on the old (1950’s era) Ritz designs.He was the hotel guy who operated swanky hotels to pay for his fly fishing exploits and winning casting tournaments. Would it be possible for you to mike the diameters of your sections vs. their lengths? This would make a great project for my group. Thanks again.
I haven’t ben tying any leaders for my single hand trout rods, but have been tying leaders for my two handers using the 60-20-20 formula. I’ve been getting pretty good results and have been tweaking the leaders a bit to improve performance.
REE
Wow! you guys are good (or maybe just old) but that’s exactly the info I’m after. Could you further suggest some appropriate diameters for my folks to try for a 8’ leader for a 5 or 6 wgt. rod to get them started right? Much thanks.
The 60-20-20 formula works fairly well.
I use just the three sections for a bass or saltwater leader. For trout leaders I find this formula butt heavy.
Some trout formulas work out closer to 50-25-25 or even 40-20-40 for light weight rods. I find that for trout leaders the butt section should be stepped down once and the mid-section should be stepped down 5 or 6 times. Otherwise I get tailling loops. That might be just me and my bad casting.
Lefty recomends a formula where you make each successive section half the lenght of the one before it.
ie 60"-30"-15"- then a 18-24" tippet. But not for trout leaders. He buys his.
I don’t remember where to find it but George Harvey’s slack leader formula was excellent for a drag free drift.
I was given a Dennison blood knot vise (never use it) that came with leader formulas.But I’ve never really tried them.
I use some of my own formulas, but mostly rely on the orvis.
Ray K, If you are interested in a particular lenght and tippet size I would be glad to write it out. As you know in the orvis pamphlet there are 22 formulas for trout leaders alone.
The first section of your leader butt should be approximatly the same stiffness as the tip end of your line. After that I can’t help you. I don’t believe that the three section leader is the right way to go for trout.
[This message has been edited by dudley (edited 13 December 2005).]
George Harvey also has an excellent leader formula & wrote several articles on leader construction !!! Will try to dig it out & copy the info !!!
Check out Steven Schweitzer’s LeaderCalc here:
[url=http://www.flyfisherman.com/skills/brleadercalc/:5a199]http://www.flyfisherman.com/skills/brleadercalc/[/url:5a199]
You will need Microsoft Excel to open & use it.
It is a program to calculate and adjust leader formulas. It works great!
[This message has been edited by Bamboozle (edited 13 December 2005).]
JC has a very good point:
Actually it is more a place to start rather than a place to stop.
Once you start tying leaders, you’ll find the more “finesse” you put into it, … the more pleasant they can be to cast.
Christopher Chin, Jonquiere Quebec
[url=http://pages.videotron.com/fcch/:f38e4]Fishing the Ste-Marguerite[/url:f38e4]
I also have downloaded and use LeaderCalc [url=http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/leadercalc/download.php,:861bc]http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/leadercalc/download.php,[/url:861bc] which not only provides good leader formulas, but is very educational. You can enter different parameters and get different results to ?see? different leaders ? how they change, appear or disappear when the criteria change.
In it there are 4 formulas for Ritz? leaders: although only two have values when 8.5ft-4X is selected. Both are 7 part leaders so I did not list the sections here.
The Borger leader has 3 sections. 45? of .013. 11? of .011, and 45? of .007. This is too simple for me.
Schweitzer?s 5 section Dry Fly Leader is 46? of .020, 20? of .017, 10? of .014, 5? of .008, and 20? of .007.
I have assumed a 4x leader in all cases. It is not hard on the river to cut the 4X back to about 10? and add some 5X or 6X if the occasion demands.
Anything else you need to know? ? be glad to help.
G
I was inspired to tie a leader when I got a reel with 15 yr. old line still on it, with a tied leader. I used the crummy, old, mass-produced monofilament - just to see whether it’d work - I was surprised… I ruined it just as fast as I can ruin a tapered leader 
, but I know I can tie one if I have to.
I didn’t have a chart to go by, I used a “30-30-30” formula and it did fairly well for gills. They didn’t complain at dinner! 
By the way JC, I really enjoyed the article since I could relate a little.
There’s almost nothin’ wrong with the first lie, it’s the weight of all the others holdin’ it up that gets ya’! - Tim
[This message has been edited by MOturkE (edited 13 December 2005).]