Evening all!

I'm interested in having a go at my own tapered leaders and have managed to find a few suggested tapers applicable to the fishing I will be doing (general purpose river dry fly).

Do any of you build your own and if so, could you recommend:

1. Leader material in the larger diameters - say up to about .55mm - for the butt and back part of the taper. I've struggled in my intitial searches to find something which is available in a comprehensive range of diameters from 0.55 down to about 0.18.

2. Any suggestions for a good leader recipe say 9-10' for general dry fly applications?

I'm eager to find out more as it's time to move on from the rather limiting factory made knotless tapered leaders.

Cheers,
Matt

__________________
The sun pushed dark spokes of melt and sparkle
Across the fields of hoar. And the river steamed -
Flint-olive.


http://northcountryangler.blogspot.com

For material you could look at Daiwa Sensor. Comes in strenghts up to 60lb b/s. Cheap, ultra relaible, old school standard nylon that is very tough and knots very well. You could add the final tippet section of something of your own choosing.

I construct mine using Maxima which goes to about 30lb b.s. but I start with 18lb tapering down to 2-3 at tippet depending quarry. For actual leader set-ups I seem to recall Paul Procter wrote an article in , I believe, last months Trout & Salmon laying out details for what you are asking

Matt,
This is a break-down of my leaders, they have performed well for me and given me turnover and presentation advantages compared to the production made leaders. I have not found the use of lower diameter butts decreasing the performance of the turnover, as long as there is a taper there will be a turnover.

For my lure and most of my buzzer set-up I use Ashima fluro: Butt 12lb (0.25), 10lb (0.22), then Berkley fluro: 8lb (0.12), 6lb (0.10).

For my general wet and dry setup I always use Stroft: Butt 5.1kg (0.22), 3.6kg (0.18), 3.0kg (0.16), 2.2kg (0.14).

I use these with a 4’-3’-2’-2’ formula giving me a leader of 11’ to which I sometimes attach a tippet dependant upon the situation. For the lure set-up I use a 3’-2’-2’-2’ formula giving me a leader of 9’.

Hope this adds to your knowledge

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Hi', All. I have the Charles Ritz tapers on a plastic card bought from Dermot Wilson, whose old business site now houses Orvis, I believe. I used them for years, when the Luxor Kroic nylon material was still available. The card holds several printed formulae, and I can try photocopying it if that would help you, Matt?
I believe my presentation of a dry fly was better in those far-off days than it is today, using commercial continuous tapered leaders. To be fair, however, I was better at fishing in those days, too!!. Tempis fugit. Or some other sort of git!!
BTW, Ritz's favourite 9ft leaders went from 22lbs b/s down to 2lbs in about 8 steps, using blood knots. Cheers TC

Rio Max is available from a number of suppliers in a range of diameters that's ideal for constructing leaders with the heavy butt / tippet (60% / 40%) profile.

Get yourself on to Global Fly Fisher and download the LeaderCalc excel spreadsheet.

http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/leadercalc/

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I'd love a copy if that were possible - any way of pdf-ing it and posting on here (or would that still be a breach of copyright?)

Has anyone ever tried double tapered leaders? I found a suggested set of dimensions for one such in a book whose title now escapes me; I tried one out and it worked. I must admit I've not tied one up for many years now, mainly because it seems illogical when you consider the taper helps turn over the leader as the energy of the cast dissipates; if you increase the taper away from the rod it must surely cause the cast to stall. You'd think so, but it didn't, for reasons I can't quite rationalise.

From memory it was something like two feet of ten pound, two of twelve, two of ten, one of eight, one of six and two of four.

I've been looking at this after an interesting post on Geoff's Eden Angler blog:

http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/leadercalc/

the leadercalc spreadsheet is truly a thing of beauty, right down to the customisable printed lables.......I'm intrigued!

M

__________________
The sun pushed dark spokes of melt and sparkle
Across the fields of hoar. And the river steamed -
Flint-olive.


http://northcountryangler.blogspot.com

Hi Threerivers.Yes, quite some time ago, you could buy double-tapered leaders.
I bought one. I think it was a Masterline leader. I didn't find it worked any better than the normal big butt continuous type.
I think it was Ritz who said that you shouldn't step down to a leader less than 50% of the diameter of the tip of the fly line to which it was connected. The DT leader loop was light enough to cause hingeing at the connection. At least that was how I felt about it.
If I can find the one I bought, I'll let you know. Since Charles Ritz is dead, sadly, I don't suppose copyright would be infringed by publishing his formulae; but I wouldn'y like to find out the hard way!!
I'll PM you TR., and then make enquiries regarding Copyright.
I worked in electronics, where I learned about power transference in aerial feeder systems, among other things, and I guess smooth power transference from a fly line down to the fly could depend on a good 'match' at the connection between the line and the leader. That seems to be in line (pardon the pun ) with what Charles Ritz suggested. If the leader thickness and stiffness matched that of the line at the connection, BINGO!! Perfect turnover. Although, in the RF power field, maximum power transfer was what we were after, there is a sort of parallel. Cheers for now. TerryC
PS Just checked Leader Calc, they quote Ritz, saying 60% min., I 'misremembered'.

Matt

I'm was recently at a similar point, struggling to find a full range of mono sizes. I contacted the importers of both Stroft and Maxima and in each case they import only from 15lb BS down to the fine stuff.

In the end imported the range of Maxima I wanted from http://www.flyfishusa.com/leaders/maxima.html. Ironic that mono made in Germany, shipped to the USA, then shipped back to UK is cheaper than the same mono bought in the UK!

Andrew