Is there any need for a leader two and a half times your rod length? Im hearing leaders of 24 feet, surely this is a bit excessive?

The main difficultly with long leaders with teams on is netting the fish if it takes the point. I fish a team of 3 on a 9'6" with a twenty foot leader and it's just about possible to net a fish in a boat when it's on the point. If I'm honest I would fish a longer leader if it were practical.

I assume this is a depth thing then?

Iv heard it improves the presentation, not heard of a reference to depth

I'm interested to find out more myself. All I picture when I hear 24ft leader is me with wraps of line around my face and a team of nymphs embedded into various parts of my head and face.

We regularly use these lengths when boat fishing - four flies 6 feet apart or ten feet to the first fly and then five feet between droppers. In terms of landing fish all that matters is distance from top dropper to point versus rod and landing net handle length. I use a 6 foot handle.

Try it, so long as there is a little wind to help turmover, not too much and you use a stiff leader, it is not that hard to handle and I promise you will catch more.

Charlie

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Sonik Sports Team Pitsford Pirates

i see most of these replys with guys using 20 foot plus leaders are fishing from a boat or possibly wading,but i tend to agree if i used that size from the bank it would be wrapped around me and possibly the ticket office too lol, 15 foot is what i can manage from the bank,with 2 or 3 flies spaced out

I often bank fish with 20 foot+ leaders,Arthur Cove in a series of articles in the angling mags of the 70s and 80s and later in his excellent book "My Way With Trout" influenced many of us away from the then standard 9 foot leader.
If you can find the book get it read and re read,there is a huge depth of info there for both bank and boat fisher alike .
These long leaders do take a little bit of geting used to,but can be used with the wind behind or across,dont try them into the wind ,there you will get tangles and poor presentation .
Getting started I would add an extra 4 foot to what I was used to and increase length as I got more confident .
I still use a lot of the Cove patterns especially the Pheasant tails and his spider patterns!

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Andy Wren
Winter grayling taking a year off !
Claret not just a great dubbing colour!

I agree - this is largely for boat fishing.

Off the bank/wading I tend to use 10-20 ft depending on wind direction, how many flies and what depth I am trying to achieve.

Charlie

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Sonik Sports Team Pitsford Pirates

I tend to use about 22ft leader, 10ft to the top dropper and then 4ft between, I usually have no problems landing fish.

That is unless the previous day I've been fishing with a team mate and swapped rigs, which he then adds an extra a couple of feet to the end hey Charlie.