After the discussion about fluoro droppers breaking off I thought I'd ask a question as to preferred leader setups for reservoir nymph/wet fly fishing in a separate thread.

What length?
What breaking strain/x/thickness tippet do you use?
What material (fluoro, copolymer, mono)?
How long are your droppers?
Distance between droppers?

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Using a looper and a top makes for a much better furled leader!

12-20'
8-12lb
flourocarbon
2-3 droppers
6''
4-6'

Jim

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The Fishermans Friend is the Flirty Fly,Fickle Food for Fleeting Fish.

I use:

18 foot leader
7lb
Fluro
6 - 8 inch droppers
Distance between: 5 - 6 feet

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Species Caught in 2010: Atlantic Salmon, Sea Trout, Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Smallmouth Bass, Largemouth Bass, Yellow Perch, Muskie

What works for me is 10ft of maxima 6lb using 1 dropper 6" long tied using a double grinner about 60cm from point fly. What i,ve found with fluro is exactly what you were saying, you can,t knot it with confidence. Good luck Alan

To be clear, I've never had an issue knotting fluoro - either adding tippet (triple overhand knot) or fly to tippet (improved clinch or Lefty's loop in the case of saltwater fishing). But I've not used droppers extensively until now. I think there is potentially a peculiar issue with low diameter fluoro droppers fouling and leading to breakage on a strike or simply that the nature of the triple overhand knot is such that the tag end (which I have to date trimmed off but now want to use as the dropper) is vulnerable. I've only had the dropper tag break off and not the knot break (say at the higher dropper) leading to loss of the remaining leader. I am going to use the Figure 8 knot from now on and see if it makes a difference.

I suspect I can also move to a higher breaking strain than the 4x 6lb fluoro I've used to date. (For single fly stillwater fishing I've used 5x and lighter tippet for rivers.)

__________________
Using a looper and a top makes for a much better furled leader!

Did you not say in your post that you had been broken X amount of times ? That,s what i was refering to ?

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Wanted spool for airflo balance 7/9

You will see elsewhere on this forum that a lot of the match boys use 9.5lb or even 12lb b.s. fluoro leaders and claim not to have any problems.
Certainly I would never go below 6lb bs when nymph fishing and usually have 8lb on.
Look at the diameters of the leaders you are using as much as at the breaking strain.
As for dimensions, it depends a bit if you are boat fishing or bank fishing - when I would normally go a bit shorter and perhaps only use 1 dropper if it was windy.
Normal starting set up from the boat would be in line with others on this thread - 15 to 20 foot total length, with 6 to 8 foot from fly line to first dropper, 5 or 6 foot to second dropper and same to the point (I usually employ only 3 flies).
I would normally use 8 to 10 inch droppers, unless the wind was awkward when I would shorten by a half.
Do remember to have your heaviest fly on the point to help turnover.
And don't overstrain looking for distance. It's more important to get turnover and presentation than to have that extra 2 or 3 yards.

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Andrew W

"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets." Arthur Miller

Cheers guys. I am referring to fishing from a drifting boat (with drogue).

Scooby, only ever had an issue with the dropper - not more generally with knotting fluoro when both tag ends are clipped.

PS: the 4X tippet I have used is Rverge Grand Max which has an advertised breaking strain of 7.5lbs and a diameter of 0.185mm. Sounds like I could easily step up to the 3X 9.5lbs 0.21mm version of the same? I will also switch to using the Figure 8 knot with short dropper sections added to a 15 foot tapered leader rather than adding sections of tippet to a shorter leader and leaving the tags as the dropper. I think I can manage 15 feet or so. 18 could lead to a lot of cursing. (I have a 9ft rod.)

Do you guys make up a bunch of leaders and store them in pouchers or similar?

Appreciate the advice.

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Using a looper and a top makes for a much better furled leader!

I've seen guys make up leaders and store them on foam cylinders.
I normally make them up as I go along. That way I can easily adjust the various lengths to suit the conditions.
Storing leaders usually means taking longer to unwind/unravel them than it takes me to tie up a new one, even in a boat.

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Andrew W

"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets." Arthur Miller