I was out last week on the river playing about with nymphing at various ranges, up, across and downstream all with a 7ft tapered leader and a 3ft tippet. The most productive (probably because i could detect the takes!) was close up fishing between 10ft and 15ft in total of line/leader/tippet beyond the rod tip, fished up and across and allowed to drift down and past me.
I've used furled leaders before and i was thinking one of these about 9ft and well greased would work well, or possibly a shop bought french leader.
What set ups do you guys use for this sort of fishing? Jon

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http://www.fishleven.co.uk/
http://www.edenangling.co.uk/

John Tyzack showed me his 2 bead nymph rig in the spring.
5 foot of 0.16 dia stroft attached to the braided loop on the end of his fly line. A 12" braided indicator with one end flouro red and the other flouro yellow.
4 feet of 0.1 Stroft ABR to the dropper and about 2 to 2.5 Feet to the point.
Works a treat as long as you can wade upsteam close to the fish.

John H

Thank god for a reply i was thinking no one on here used leaders or nymphs!
That sounds like a nice simple set up, I've not tried indicators on the river apart from the duo set up. Detection of takes is quite difficult I was lifting at the end of a drift to find i was pulling into a fish sometimes.

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http://www.fishleven.co.uk/
http://www.edenangling.co.uk/

For a simple and effective leader system use the Borger Uni-body leader. The instruction are below:

Fish, Flies & Water [blog] » Some Leaders for Trout

I did a google search so you can read the comments on this leader for yourself:

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Silver Creek- "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought"....Szent-Gyorgy

Lifting into a fish at the end of the drift is not uncommon. They react to the nymph rising. Its a bit like an induced take. Its worth while to include a strike at the end of the drift just to cover this eventuality.

John H