[j.r fartley]

can anyone give me some advice concerning making up my own leaders? i recently tried tapered leaders but found the tippet broke easily,i generally use 10-12ft,so was thinking 4ft of 6lb,4ft of 4lb and 4ft of 2lb?? does that sound about right?? also what are the best materials to use for different types of fishing?? mono/fluoro for wet/dry/nymphing etc..?? any advice would be greatly appreciated.  ???

[Rob Brownfield]

What are you fishing for, where and what flies?

If after stillwater Rainbows I would up the leader to at least a 4 pound tippet, probably 6 flurocarbon....mainly coz of the wee teeth a Bow has. I would start with 12, 8 then 6 or 4lb myself.

If after Browns on the river I would be tempted just to use a 10 foot poly leader and a 3 foot section of 2-3 pound tippet..no more need for tapered nylon leaders

But thats me..I am sure other more experienced fishers can give you different answers.

[Irvine Ross]

Why not just cut back the tapered leader by about 3 feet and tie in 3 feet of your usual tippet material

Irvine

[Barry Robertson]

Or why not bother at all!
I personally dont think it makes that much difference unless you are using very small delicate stuff 

[Sandy Nelson]

jr

I use tapered leaders all time and it makes a huge difference to turn over of the flies.
Presentation is a big part of any fly fishing so well worth it.
I would perhaps suggest you are going a bit light.
I'd buy a 9ft tapered leader with a 5 or 6 lb point and then tie a 3ft tippet of 4 or 5 lb to the end of it.
Modern co-poly's and flourocarbons mean you can use stronger line with the same dimensions as lighter nylon.
 Thats not to say that nylon is a bad thing , far from it But i would suggest you used a nylon tapered leader down to a 3 or 4 lb point and then a 2 or 3 lb tippet, the give in nylon means it can be lighter in breaking strain, but it will a similar diameter to the co-poly that is stronger.
That old chestnut of personal preference.

As for tying your own, give it a try and see how you do, but i like as few knots in the leader to start with as i can add plenty during fishing You will need a much stronger butt section though, i'd say 3ft of 12lb, 3 ft of 9lb, 3ft of 6 lb and then a tippet of  say 4lb.

IMHO try tapered leaders again, butt go for something with a 6lb tip and add a 5 lb tippet to it

Sandy

[j.r fartley]

thanks for the replies everyone! adding tippet to the tapered leader sounds like a good idea (i bought 4 packets ) i suppose itl be trial and error til i find what suits! the other thing i was meaning to ask about was fishing new zealand style?? if iv got a klink on the point with a nymph on the bend whats best to use copoly or fluoro?? i struggled to keep my klink afloat last time i tried this!!!  ???

[Barry Robertson]

If you want to keep it simple i would just try 12ft co-poly then 3 ft flurocarbon, works for me 
When i read others ideas and things in magazines it just seams to complicated for what its worth!
If you can cast decent enough i really dont think a tapered leader does all that much more,i would say that if you were fishing things 18- it would aid in the presentation!

[Ben Dixon]

JR,

I set up as follows.

5 foot tapered copolymer leader tapered to about 3x (8lb ish) which I loop at the end and I will then build the rest of the leader depending upon what I am fishing.  Set up for a single dry on the river would typically be 4 feet of 3x tippet, 3 feet of 4x tippet and 2 feet of 5x tippet.  I use a three turn water knot to connect the different diameters together and then tie a loop in the 3x and loop to loop connect this on to the tapered leader, this set up is fine for dries from 12 to 16 unless they are bulky then I would lengthen the 3x by two feet and tie the fly onto the 4x.

When fishing a NZ set up I use the same tapered leader, 2 feet 3x knotted to 2 feet 4x then the Klink, then whatever length of tippet I need (depending upon depth, current & weight of nymph) for the nymph, this diameter of the tippet depends upon size and weight of nymph.

I always use tapered leaders, they are essential to dissipate the energy being transferred by the line, the exception to the rule is occasionally when nymphing, a straight length of mono gets the fy down faster and deeper and a weighted nymph usually turns over fine.  There is no way at all that I could have turned my flies over today in the wind without a tapered leader and it is more or less impossible to throw curves or make accurate slack line presentations on a river without using a tapered leader.


Cheers

Ben

[j.r fartley]

whenever i,ve fished nymphs this year i,ve stuck to a length of mono,its anytime im using dries im obsessed with getting turnover right,troot was right when he says the magazines complicate things!, im finding the more time i spend fishing and learning about different ways to do things the more time i spend questioning my methods!!!i honestly couldnt get to sleep last night cause i was wondering about tapered leaders!       

[Barry Robertson]

Personally i dont throw curves or anything fancy like that so i dont see the need to complicate my fishing!
On rivers i cast to a rising fish and if its into the windi just have to hope my cast is good enought to turn the fly over!
If its that windy i cant do that i doubt a tapered leader will help me either!

Ben i dissagree with the point you made that they are essential 
But hey thats just my opinion!

[Ben Dixon]

JR,

Best way is simply to play about with things until you find something that works for you.  I would also use a tapered leader when fishing spiders or any other multiple fly set up, good turnover reduces tangles, I would not loose sleep over it  

In terms of brands, I normally use Orvis Superstrong knotless tapered leaders as they are easily obtained for me, the Varivas leaders are also very good.


Baz, a tapered leader will help you get turnover so you may not need to simply hope it goes out o.k.  If you connect tippet of a diameter that works a #14 dry effectively straight to your flyline it will kick and recoil back as the loop turns over giving a good chance of the fly sitting next to coils of leader or the fly not drifting along the desired path.  If you do not have full control over how your fly lands it will reduce your chances of catching fish, 4lb mono straight to a flyline will not offer the best available presentation but, if your happy then I aint going to try to stop you 

Ben

[j.r fartley]

reading fishing books before bed is a terrible idea,i had a nitemare about a broken rod tip the other night! il set up a few leaders and let yous know how i get on ! thanks!! 

[Barry Robertson]

Just  out of curiousity - next time iam out i will give your method a try and report back with honest feedback!
No doubt that your correct and its just the case of i have never been arsed to pussy about with tapered laders 

[slippy]

  I use tapered mono leaders all the time. 12ft with a 5lb point then a leader ring then about 3ft of flouro tippet. Over a season it saves me money coz I can swap leaders from line to line to fish lighter or heavier tippets and also coz my casting is crap and I like to put some distance between my fly and line. 

[Mike Barrio]

Hi folks

To continue on with this and possibly come up with some sort of easy to use DIY guide .........

If you had the following spools of mono nylon in your tackle bag:
(a) 3 lb at 0.18mm
(b) 4 lb at 0.20mm
(c) 5 lb at 0.22mm
(d) 6 lb at 0.25mm
How would you make up DIY tapered leaders from these? and how would you make them up for the different type of flies that you fish? Would you be reasonably happy with this selection of nylon to work with, or would you feel that you are missing a crucial lb/mm size to improve your leaders? It would be great if we could simply work with the above sizes, a challenge if you like

I would imagine that you might like to make different leader set ups for different tactics, but how many tactic categories would be useful?
( river dries, river spiders, river wets, river nymphs, stillwater dries, stillwater wets, stillwater spiders, stillwater buzzers, stillwater nymphs, stillwater lures etc etc etc? )

I am simply thinking of joining sections with a simple 3 turn water knot.

Cheers
Mike