Sounds like a girl i didnt go out with !!

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Irish by birth, Munster by the grace of God.

"Naturally I want to get the fly to land in a straight line out from the leader , without flopping."

This is the last thing I would want. In most cases drag will be almost immediate.

I use a 9' Orvis superstrong tapered leader with a 8.5lbs point.
Cut off the top loop and fit a braided loop. Make sure the thick end of the leader goes inside both "layers" of the tubular part of the loop to avoid hingeing.
Cut off approx 2' from the small end and form a small perfection loop.
Use a loop to loop connection to attach 2' of 4lbs Wytch wood floating nylon and then knot 2'6" of 0.1 Stroft GTM.

Grease up the tapered leader.

Now if you want to fish Spiders. Detatch the Tippet from the loop and fit a 2 or 3 fly tippet, loop to loop again.

If you want to fish small tungsten nymphs or even heavy Czech nymphs. Add an indicator,( I use about 12" of gold flouro stren, loop to loop to the end of the tapered leader, then loop to loop to the buisness part again.

Turnover is good. You can pile cast the dry fly set up to extend a drag free float and its very flexible. Great for quick changing from one method to another.

If the 0.1 Stroft is too fine for the larger dries you can change the 4lbs Wychwood for say 7lbs and up the dia of the final connection to the fly.

Alternatively you can apply all of this to say a 9 meter Camo leader.

John H

To ask the obvious.... was it windy? I have the same problems on a very still day as it has been of late. On a still day reduce your length of tippet when fishing a dry to around 3 or 4 feet and try giving it a bit more "wellie" on your forward cast. Next, make sure you dont go beyond the 2 o'clock position on your back cast. Also try keep your rod parralel to your body, if your fly is landing to the right of your line your rod is being held at an angle. (I think)
These are the problems I have come across and the solutions I have found

There may be two main causes of your problem. One is a casting problem & the fact that your leader consistently curves to the righ would suggest that this may well be a contributary factor. As mentioned there may well be a tracking problem. Also a good, crisp stop on the forward cast is essential for good turn over. If punching into a wind I'll even pull back sharply at the stop point to whip over the leader although this can slap the fly & line down too hard if you don't judge things right. I nearly always use longish leaders; 12' with my 7 & 8' #1 to #3 rods on small streams & 14 to 18' with my 9 & 10' #4 rods on bigger rivers & usually find I can turn them over OK in all but briskish breezes. Your second problem, as suggested might be leader design; I use Rio Powerflex copolymer leaders; 9' 5x or 4x plus 3' of tippet (usually 5x to 7x) for the 12' leaders & 12' Powerflex leaders plus 3 to 6' of tippet for the longer leaders. Recently whilst in Montana I got some Rio Powerflex 15' 4x & 5X leaders which I'll try for my longer leaders in windy conditions. As for the hinging at the join between fly line & leader, for most of my lines I use a needle knot to join my leader to the fly line. With a thin coat of Knot Sense or Suncure it makes a sound, smooth join, with no jamming into the tip ring when landing fish or working the line out of the rod tip.
Hope this is of help.
Dave

Annoyingly it wasnt windy as such, and quite tree lined.

Maybe I should stick to straight through 5lb co-polymer.

The leader is a Furled leader from Spidersplus that seems to work well.

I'm wondering if it is the knot between the 5lb copoly and the 3lb copoly which is causing this?

Its the same one that is used for droppers i think by Ollie Edwards and many more - but as this causes droppers to stick out at right angles ( ish ) , this may be the cause of the annoying problem?

I might be much better off with two small loops .

Or a tiny ring to connnect the two?

I will try this evening on a loop to loop dtraight throgh tippet of 5ft , to the 5ft furled leader.........

__________________
Irish by birth, Munster by the grace of God.

Getting the fly to turn over nicely and then land delicately can be done irrespective to whether you are using a forward taper, a double taper or even a shooting head at great distance. And you can do this with quite a heavy fly line.

What you do is aim high and as the line shoots out you stop it - in mid air - not abruptly - and the line will turn over. The stop is more like a check and then a forwards follow through which causes the fly to alight like thistle down. It's easier to demonstrate than describe and it pays to watch the line carefully during the cast.

i dont believe its anything to do with your leader. I use a big butt leader normally 6X @ 9ft then if i use 2 droppers straight through(normally 2.5lb as i normally fish rivers) another 9ft, one dropper 6ft and single 5ft. I don't believe in stepping down in thickness's any more than above it doesn't achieve anything other than introduce a further weakness in the leader for no advantage. I think you need to go and seek an instructor to put you right. Roy C offers very good advice.

I had a similar problem with a silk leader which I started to use. It was brilliant at first, then it got to the point where the leader wouldn't turn over past the end of the flyline and would make a 90 degree bend. I think that the loop of the leader got very soft from the weight of it, creating a bad hinge. I swapped back to a Frog's Hair tapered leader and the problems disappeared. Perhaps your co-poly is too soft and you require a stiffer material, such as Maxima. Do you loop to loop the leader to the end of the furled leader or is there a ring? If a loop, have you tried tying it directly to the loop?

I use a loop to loop to connect the furled leader to about 4ft of tippet ( 5lb copoly by Jim Teeny's compant - cant remember name ) .

I did better yesterday evening ( caught a few on dries ) and reckon the issue is either the loop at the end of the furled leader, or the knot that i had been using to connect the 5lb copoly, to a further foot or two of thinner copoly.

The season finishes for me soon, but has anyone used Perlon co-poly tippet ?

I think a slightly stiffer material would help.....

__________________
Irish by birth, Munster by the grace of God.