I have been trying some different materials for my Leaders, and I am finding it very confusing.
I have tried flourocarbon and have found that the knot strength is not brilliant. On the labels they say something like 3X 6lb or 4X 5lb, 2X8lb etc. What does the ?X mean, the 5lb etc is obviously the breaking strain.
Drennan sub surface green is one that I have used, I know this is monofilament/Nylon and have not had any real problems with this.
Bought some Maxima Chameleon 5lb and the knot strength on this is even worse than the Flourocarbon I tried.
Then there's copolymer, not tried this yet but what is it, whats the difference and why do my dropper knots keep breaking!!!!

It may be the knot you are using for droppers. Is the dropper itself breaking off or does the whole leader break? I find Fulling Mill Flourocarbon fairly resistant to snapping and it seems strong for its breaking strain. I have tried a few flouros and this one suits me best. If I am fishing dries in a ripple I use Fulling Mill co-polymer. Again it seems strong.

Fogmun


I would strongly suggest tryin the uni knot for these lines.


Very easy to tie and very, very good indeed.


Remember to ALWAYS wet the knot before pulling it tight. Spit is good.


Personally, and perhaps myopic, I dont look at the X factor (sorry, scuse the pun) but look at both thickness and breaking strain.

5lb may be too light depending on what and where you are fishing. As an example, if you are pulling a big lure, then it may be too light but if you are fishing dries or small nymphs then it will be fine.

Knots are very, very important and I would strongly suggest you try the uni knot. Google it



Hope this helps



Ben

---------- Post added at 09:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:38 PM ----------



Ah! I should have read this better, it is dropper knots you are asking about.


Some folk suggest a Two-Turn dropper for Fluoro and Three-Turn for other lines.

Personally, I use dropper rings with......you guessed it.....uni-knots



Ben

__________________


**The SKB Website**


Tackle Essentials - Pliers, Snips, Pimps etc

Utterly Pimping Reel Porn


MrTrout's Furled Leaders


Help our Heroes



*Proud Sponsor of the EYFA and Pitsford Pirates*

First of, copolymer floats.
Mono is somewhere in between, needs floatant to float or sinkant to sink.
Flouro sinks. Don't take this for granted, finer lines (lighter) can also float.
Flouro is noted for poor knot strength but there are some excellent knots that work with the stuff, same goes for copolymer.
Again brands don't help, some are good, some are bad. Some lines are thicker for same breaking strain. Don't worry about X, normally the larger the number, the lighter and finer the line. 6X lighter and finer than 2X.
If you have confidence and no problems with Drennam sub surface, then stick with it. Do experimant with different knots though.

For my droppers I have been using the figure 8 loop knot.
With the drennan I dont really have any problems, the same knot with flourocarbon does not seem as strong. I have generally been using 5 or 6lb B.S, perhaps I should upgrade to 8 or 10lb B.S in flourocarbon.
I always moisten my knots and tie them the same with both materials.
Will try some other knots too. Do the leader rings help droppers stick out at right angles, as I seem to have problems with my droppers twisting round the line.

Had some problems with fluoro myself. At the moment, I use Fulling Mill, never less than 6lb bs and use the Paul Procter version of the Davy knot as demonstrated by Noeyedeer in the thread below.
I still have occasional inexplicable breaks but on balance reckon that I get more takes overall using fluoro.

Knots for fluoro

__________________
"Take not out your 'ounds on a werry windy day" Surtees.

As i have been testing the spools that I have before I get to the water I have not had any breaks, except for Tuesday night, using the maxima chameleon, I didnt bother testing it first, as naively I thought "it's mono, what can go wrong" lost a fish on my first and only take of the night on what was a very difficult evenings fishing.
It's just when I put some line together tie the droppers as I would if I was actually fishing and test it by applying pressure they break far too easily for my liking.

You will still get some twisting, unavoidable. With the rings, if you do get snapped, you just change the line that got snapped at the ring. They are only small and can be fiddely with cold wet hands, I've dropped quite a few and taken ages to tie them.
For knots, Uni-knot or some times known as Duncam loop, flies to tippet or tippet to dropper rings.
George Harvey dry fly knot, for turned eyed hooks, up eyed or down eyed.
Orvis or Becker knot, flies to tippet.

---------- Post added at 10:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:01 PM ----------

You need to store mono in the dark, you may have an old batch or some that have been left in sunlight (ie shop window).

I would say the opposite.

The 'X' is the key.

X refers to the diameter of the material you're using and it is the only true constant. You'll find that if you read the labels of various tippet materials the diameter varies considerably for the same stated breaking strain.

For the greater majority of my fishing I use two brands - for rivers, and particularly grayling in the winter I use Stroft GTM and on stillwaters Rio Powerflex.

For a lot of my stillwater fishing I nail knot 4ft of the butt end of a 9ft, 5x tapered leader to my fly line and add a 2mm tippet ring. I then construct the remainder of my leader with Rio Powerflex, perhaps 3x (8.2lb) in 'normal' conditions and flies of size 8 to 12 or 2x (10lb) if using smallish lures.

On rivers, with 2,3 & 4wt lines I'll often use the point end 4 or 5ft of a 5x leader and add lengths of 6, 7, 8x or in extremis Varivas 9x ( allows me to fish flies down to sizes 28 and 30 )

Your choice of diameter of leader material is dictated by the size of flies you're using and how you intend to get those flies in front of the fish.

Choice of leader material is a very personal one. I like Stroft, a lot of people don't seem to get on with it - I've a suspiscion they're buying by breaking strain rather than diameter as it is very thin for its breaking strain. There's a lot to recommend Maxima but I find it a bit 'over-size' for its stated breaking strain. Older fly fishers may recall Tynex - marketed for its 'stiffness', its stiffness was a reflection of its diameter - 7lb Tynex was much like 20lb sea fishing line.

Simple answer is find a leader material you like - mono, copolymer or fluoro (it makes little difference 99% of the time) - find some knots you can tie confidently that are suitable for the material and there you go.

__________________
[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

[url]www.wildfly.net[/url]

[url]http://www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk/[/url]

Hi Fogmun

Few little words for you,hope they help a little.

The basic reasoning for the system is that you need a certain diameter leader to be able to turn the fly over, so you picked the size of leader to suit your fly. Originally of course you could roughly relate the diameter to the breaking strain as it was mostly the same material, but in modern terms, 4x could be 4lb or 8lb depending on the material, so it really does just relate to diameter these days. Don't worry too much, a lot of people never use it and purely go on breaking strain. small dries 2-5lb, ,medium flies nymphs 4lb to 7lb. lures 7lb to 10lb , salmon flies 10lb to 20lb, based on their experiences really. Also most people do roughly relate the X system to breaking strain to try and remember which leader is which.

A good rule of thumb is to tie on the fly, then holding the leader an inch from the fly, try and hold it all horizontally. If the fly hangs right down the leader isn't strong enough and might struggle to turn over, if it's virtually horizontal the leader is too thick and may prevent natural movement, hanging down about 45 degrees is about right.

One thing the X system is good for is knotting leaders together, never go for more than two X size differences as the knot may fail by the thinner leader pulling through the first, for example, you can water knot 4x to a 3x/2x or 5x/6x, 7x or 1x is pushing your luck.

__________________
Remember, there are two kinds of fishermen, those that fish for sport and those that catch something.


My new website,still lots of work to do on it..!![URL="http://www.flyandlures.com/"]http://www.flyandlures.com/[/URL]