Hand Tied Leaders

 If I were to challenge myself to seriously improve my skill as a fly-fisherman, you know where I’d start?

I’d improve my knowledge of leaders.

Here is the thing, I usually use a straight run of six or eight pound Maxima brown about a foot longer than my rod.

To that I’ll add a few feet of tippet - two pounds lighter than my straight run. As the day goes on this will get progressively shorter with each fly change until I extend it with tippet or tie on a whole new section.

This isn’t because it’s the best way to do it.

It’s because a while ago I broke a tapered leader. Not having a spare to hand I tied a length of leader directly to my fly-line and it worked fine.

It works under most conditions pretty well, under some conditions exceptionally well and under a few conditions so poorly that I tend to not bother and just go somewhere else.

Here is where it works best, wet flies in moving water. It works where the presentation of the fly upon landing is less important than the presentation through the swing and the dangle at the end of the drift.

You can control the depth of the fly by shortening or lengthening the leader. It is quick to change or renew, cheap and effective.

Shortened up to about six feet and fished with lead-headed flies it is deadly for Shad and sea-run trout in brackish or salt water.

Here is where it doesn’t work.

Anywhere the presentation of the fly upon landing is critical. whether wet or dry.
You can see from this a couple of things. First, that most of my fishing is done wet and second, that I’m basically kind of cheap.

Ian and Steve

Ian Gall

On my last trip to Newfoundland, Ian Gall who is a Master Guide, fine fly fisherman and superb raconteur gave me a hand-tied leader.

It tapered in nine feet through a beautiful series of blood knots from around 12 pound test to about 4 pound test. An additional 3 feet of tippet made for a 12 foot leader that cast so amazingly that the dry fly I was using would make one perfect circular ripple when it landed.

The first time I used it was on an evening’s still-water fishing. Trout were rising all around me but ignored everything I tried, both wet and dry.

I thought about that leader tucked in my vest pocket and figured that maybe crashing the fly into the rings of a rise was not subtle enough.

Trout this size didn’t get that way by being stupid. I finally bit the bullet and spent some precious evening fishing time tying on the new leader and tippet.

I was struck again by the craftsmanship of the fine, symmetrical blood knots so evenly spaced.

Tying on a #12 elk hair caddis and stripping about twenty feet of fly line I waited for a fish to show within reach, the line coiled in my hand and the fly flicking out in a slow false cast.

I could feel the difference in control and the slightly changed timing but the adjustment was automatic when a slow roll revealed a fish in range.

The caddis looped out and straightened about a foot above the rise form.

The green bodied fly landed within the rings, barely a ripple betraying its artificial origin.

The fly had hardly settled when the water erupted as a big Brook Trout swung around and smacked one of the knots in my leader.