Unless you are new to fly fishing, the subject of leaders has probably occupied some of your time. What should you put between your fly and the fly line? For the majority, the solution is buy something in a suitably labeled packet and just go fishing. A few folks will read an article or two and make a more informed purchase. More adventurous types build their own leaders using recipes developed by guides and other experts. And then there are the people who use micrometers to measure the diameter of the material on every spool and run spreadsheets to determine the “perfect” leader.
Having spent decades fishing for everything from trout to tarpon, I have come to the conclusion that a lot of information about leaders is overly complicated. For expert fly casters competing in accuracy events, it makes perfect sense to fine-tune the leader to the nth degree. But most of us will never enter a casting competition. While accuracy is certainly important, actual fly fishing often places additional and sometimes competing demands on the leader. Experts need the precision of an IndyCar, while most of us regular folks need the utility of a pickup truck. Fortunately, the majority of issues with leaders can usually be addressed by considering three criteria: breaking strength, castability, and the leader’s effect when fishing a fly.
Catch-and-Release Tippets
For many fly fishers, catch-and-release angling has become the normal way to fish, whether it’s for golden trout, wild steelhead, or stocked rainbows. But are we really practicing effective catch and release? While elevated water temperatures and air exposure (during hook removal and photos) appear to be the main drivers of postrelease mortality, fight duration is important, too. Unfortunately, due to confounding variables (water temperature, physiological condition, size, and more), estimating a reliably safe time limit for the fight is challenging.
A 2018 paper on air exposure, fight times, and deep-hooking rates of steelhead caught in Idaho fisheries documented actual fight durations and compared them with the findings of six published studies on postcapture mortality in various salmonids. The authors concluded that fight times under three minutes were unlikely to result in significant mortality. While a time limit based solely on salmonids is not ideal, at least it gives us something to work with. Thankfully, landing most freshwater and many saltwater fish in three minutes or less isn’t that difficult if you use a suitably strong tippet.
For anglers who fish in streams where a one-pound trout is a big fish, 6X tippet is usually more than adequate. If there’s a possibility of hooking a fish nudging two pounds, a step up to 5X tippet solves the problem. Things get trickier when you fish in waters where fish over two pounds are a possibility, such as in California’s lakes and reservoirs. In the most productive lakes, a two-pound trout is quite likely, and fish over four pounds are a real possibility. If the lake has a substantial baitfish population, you may hook a trout weighing six pounds or more. A sudden lunge or head shake from a three-pound fish can easily break 5X tippet, and a lively four-pounder will often make short work of 4X. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen.
You might wonder how a threepound trout can snap 5X tippet with a rated break strength of 5 pounds. The problem is that a tippet’s rated strength isn’t the same as its knot strength. This might seem like bogus marketing, but there’s no way the manufacturer can know how strong your knots are. In all likelihood, you don’t know how strong your knots are, either. You may have assumed that if a knot is (purportedly) rated at 90 percent of tippet strength, that’s how strong your knots will be. For a long time, I did, too. I’m afraid, though, that for most of us, this is wishful thinking.
Regular readers of this magazine may recall the March/April 2020 “Gearhead” column detailing the results of many hours of quantitative knot testing. Average knot strength (nylon and fluorocarbon) turned out to be about two-thirds of the tippet’s rated strength. That was the average. Sometimes the number was closer to half the rated strength. A simple wind knot, which we all get from time to time, cut the tippet rating in half. This is why a rapid head shake from a two-pound trout can snap 5X material, and a lunging four-pounder can pop 3X.
So how do we go about selecting the right tippet for fish over two pounds? Here is a simple rule of thumb based on knot testing and thousands of hours of fishing. If you have confidence in your knots and are unlikely to get a wind knot, 3X (8-pound test) should handle fish up to three pounds. If fish over three pounds are a possibility, just follow the recommendation of Denny Rickards and use 1X (12 to 13.5 pounds).
The thought of using such strong tippets for freshwater fish might make your eyebrows rise, but rest assured it’s fine. For lakes, I made the switch years ago, and I am catching just as many fish, and knot failure is a thing of the past. Fighting fish on stronger tippets can give you a real appreciation of just how powerful they can be. If you are fishing from a float tube and hook a fish over three pounds, expect a bit of a Nantucket sleigh ride.
Things are actually simpler when you are fishing for bigger fish, such as you’ll encounter in salt water. Unless you hand-line the fish, it’s exceedingly hard to exert more than twelve pounds of force with fly-fishing gear. If you’re skeptical, and I hope you are, give it a try. The flex in the rod and stretch in the fly line makes 20-pound to 25-pound test a practical limit for most fly fishing. Unless you are hooked up to a tarpon or billfish, twelve pounds of force should be enough to land most saltwater fish in under five minutes.
Fly Delivery
The strength of your tippet doesn’t matter too much if it can’t get the fly to the fish. This usually isn’t much of an issue for folks fishing regular-sized nymphs, wets, or dries. Most companies sell leaders that are designed to transmit enough energy down to the fly to ensure it turns over at the end of the cast. Things get a bit more complicated when you add weight or an indicator. The added mass or air resistance can sometimes be a bit too much for regular leaders, resulting in casts that are inaccurate or fail to turn over fully. Fortunately, many companies provide leaders specifically designed for large or heavy flies. If you are into DIY, consider building your own. There are plenty of good leader recipes online and in back issues of California Fly Fisher. Otherwise, just buy your leaders from one of the well-known companies and go fishing.
But what if you step away from the trout stream and start flinging significantly larger f lies? Lead-eyed Clousers and fat foam poppers are great flies, but can be handful to cast. You can buy leaders designed for these types of flies, and most do a good job, but it’s really quite simple to make your own. A two-part leader with a thicker 25-to-30-pound butt section that’s about two-thirds the total leader length and a tippet of 15-to-20-pound test is usually fine. You may even be able to use a single piece of 20-pound monofilament.
Several companies market stiff leader materials that can help reduce tangles and wind knots. These are sometimes recommended for bonefish, usually to help turn over flies in the wind and to shrug off the occasional brush with coral. But that extra stiffness can make it difficult to cinch down the knots fully, which can cause them to unravel. Fortunately, medium-stiff materials from Scientific Anglers, RIO, and other companies work well in the wind and make knot tying a relatively pain-free process.
How long your big-fly leader should be mainly depends on how well you cast and the wind speed. Most of the time, you’ll want to use the longest leader you can cast without getting tangles or wind knots. For most folks, a 7-foot leader should be manageable in calm conditions, while good casters can usually handle 9 or 10 feet. If the wind comes up, you can often get away with 5-foot or 6-foot leaders. If you really struggle in the wind, consider using a clear-tipped fly line and 3 or 4 feet of tippet.
Short leaders are often a good choice if you are using a sinking line and fishing your fly on or near the bottom. This is especially true when targeting largemouth and smallmouth bass, which can inhale and eject crawdad or worm pattern so quickly and delicately that you may never know you’ve had a bite. The same can be true for trout feeding on dragonfly nymphs or for surfperch crunching sandcrabs. While it may look ridiculously short, a 2-foot or 3-foot leader can turn these gentle taps into hookups. A few years back, I netted an eight-plus-pound rainbow for a buddy who was twitching a smelt pattern along the bottom of a lake. His leader was just 3 feet long.
Is It Food?
Now we come to what is perhaps the most challenging part of leader design: making your fly look and behave like something edible. On waters where the fishing is supported by regular deliveries of hatchery fish, it doesn’t take much to make your fly look like food. Indeed, a poorly cast brown fly that makes a plop when it hits the water will usually signal food to fish that have spent most of their life consuming pellets. But things can be more challenging if you are fishing waters with wild fish.
For anglers fishing dries, emergers, or shallow nymphs, drag can be the number-one reason for refusals. On waters such as the Fall River or Hat Creek, even a few millimeters of drag can be enough to kill your chances. One approach to this dilemma is the so-called Fall River twitch, where the line is fed directly down to the fish. The twitch was devised as a way to overcome the problem of fish seeing the fly line before they see the fly. However, I suspect the main advantage is actually its ability to reduce drag. A straight-downstream alignment will reduce exposure to slower or faster currents and thereby reduce the risk of drag. Unfortunately, it’s hard to twitch without a boat. Anglers who are wading or fishing from the bank will usually have to make across-stream or even upstream casts, exposing the line and leader to many conflicting currents. The first solution to this situation is making a cast that places a lot of wiggles in the fly line and leader. These will flex with the currents and provide a few feet of drift before the fly starts to drag noticeably. You can buy soft monofilament leaders that help create drag-eating wiggles, but the best setup is to use furled leaders based on fly-tying thread. These are much more flexible than even the softest mono. You’ll be amazed at how they flex in response to microcurrents you had no idea where even there. Furled leaders come in a variety of lengths and colors. While the best color will depend on water color and clarity, light olive is generally a good choice. Fish are usually accustomed to seeing bits of weed floating downstream.
Tippets can have a profound effect on how a dry fly, emerger, or shallow nymph appears to the trout. Floating tippets deform the surface film, creating a refractive pattern unlike the one formed by a natural insect. To avoid this effect, submerge the tippet by applying some sinkant. (Both nylon and fluorocarbon tend to float.) You may need only a few inches of sunk tippet right next to the fly, but on tough fish, a foot or more can be warranted. If you are fishing dries or emergers, it may help to work the floatant deep into your fly to keep it from being pulled under by the sunk tippet. Of course, you will now start to worry if the sunk tippet will scare fish.
The Great Fluorocarbon Debate
You’ve no doubt read that f luorocarbon is less visible underwater. This is based on the fact that the refractive index of water is closer to that of fluorocarbon than it is to nylon monofilament. With a scientific term like “refractive index,” this argument must be correct, right? But some folks say they’ve found no discernible difference between the two.
So who is right? Is the claim about visibility true, or simply slick marketing? It’s easy to test — just grab a glass of tap water and submerge a piece of standard nylon tippet next to fluoro of the same diameter. With light passing through the tippet (refraction), you’ll find the fluorocarbon is slightly less visible than nylon, but not much. Of course, the refractive index doesn’t help with light reflecting off the tippet. Both materials can produce flash on a sunny day.
But what if you are fishing in slightly hazy or discolored waters, such as you’ll typically encounter in lakes and lower-elevation streams? Grab a water sample from one of these places, and as you might expect, both tippets are less visible, but the fluoro may be particularly hard to see. So contrary to what we might have assumed, the lower visibility of fluoro is more significant in slightly turbid waters. Indeed, as the tap-water test suggests, fluoro may have no real advantage over nylon in gin-clear waters.
But does tippet visibility really matter? Unfortunately, research on this topic is sparse. Studies on rainbow trout, largemouth bass, pike, and carp show that fish learn to avoid baited hooks after being hooked or when they have seen another fish being hooked. Whether it was the hook or line (or both) that triggered avoidance is unclear. How long this effect lasts is also unknown.
Since the science is limited, we are left to make informed guesses. If your casting, presentation, and fly-tying skills are top-notch, fluoro tippet might, over the course of a season, put a few more fish in your net. Most of us regular, less-thanperfect fly fishers are probably better served by choosing tippet material based on flexibility and knot strength, regardless of its chemical composition.
As you explore new waters and new types of fly fishing, it’s almost inevitable you are going to face circumstances where your regular leaders aren’t up to the task. This is when it makes sense to select a leader designed for the task, modify your existing leader, or build one from scratch.
Tippet Essentials
Tippet comes in two basic types, nylon and fluorocarbon. These primarily differ on whether fluorine atoms are attached to a carbon backbone. That’s all the chemistry you really need to know.
Manufacturers use lots of terms and numbers to describe the attributes of their tippets. This can make trying to compare them a bit overwhelming. Is “superior” knot strength better than “excellent” knot strength, and how do you compare “optimal suppleness” with “unbelievably supple”? And who can argue with data derived in a lab? Fortunately, in the real world of actual fishing, we can ignore the fancy words and data.
In general, soft nylon tippet is more flexible than fluorocarbon tippet, so if drag-free drifts are critical, go with nylon. Conversely, fluorocarbon usually has less stretch, which can help you detect subtle subsurface bites, as well as quickly set the hook. Fluorocarbon is also more abrasion resistant than nylon, but a slightly thicker nylon tippet is probably comparable in most fishing situations.
— Robert Ketley
