I read an article recently on the internet about applying T Cut (The car care product for getting rid of scratches) to your Leaders to help remove / reduce Leader Flash/glint on bright days. I have come across similar ideas with Rods and as the leader is a lot closer to the fish than the Rod it seems worth a try.
Has anyone tried this and if so did they see any improvements.

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Allan
Only dead fish go with the flow.

I'm a great believer that presentation of the fly is everything, and we spend too much time worrying about minutae. I for one have never seen a fish scared by line flash, which has to be so fast, so transient and so insignificant when a few seconds later the fly, leader, and line lands on the water, so as to be immaterial. In my opinion, if a fish spooks by line flash, he would certainly bolt as soon as the line landed!
Just my penneth, but rather than rub abrasive harmful chemicals into your line, i'd concentrate on the cast more!

Cheers
Alex

Rubbing a fullers earth based line sinkant into your leader will have the same effect.

If you have no sinkant to hand a bit of dirt or mud from the bank does the same job as an emergency measure. Just make sure its not so gritty as to damage or weaken the leader too much.

I had an interesting days fishing on the River Itchen at Itchen Abbas many years ago. We had been doing a mini tour of the chalkstreams and had been doing rather well. Coming from a Clyde and Tweed trout fishing background, I was pretty sure I could get trout out of any river. This day on the Itchen made me think....

I was using a very high gloss varnished cane rod. Same 8ft 2inch rod I had just fished the River Test with the day before, the same de-flashed leader setup - every fish I covered bolted before the fly was presented to them. This had me seriously puzzled. The only difference in my tackle setup from the previous day on the Test was that I was using a borrowed Cortland 444 peach coloured floating line. Anyone who has one of those lines knows that they have quite a high gloss finish. I had forgotten my old Scientific Anglers matt finished green line. That was still on my LRH reel lying in my bag in the hotel..... A friend had loaned me his Cortland.

The upshot of this was that I drove back to the hotel to get my line. As soon as I started casting with my old line to the same fish I had spooked only an hour before, I could see the body language of the trout was entirely different. I "knew" instinctively I was on a winner. And so it proved. I had a super days fishing on that lovely stretch of the Itchen.

My opinion? Reducing leader flash is important. Reducing fly line flash is equally as important.


David.

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You are spot on there David. Frustrated by the lack of flylines in the best colour for dry fly fishing, dull mahogany brown, I decided to get some made, rather than dying up one of the commonly available bright lines.

This does mean buying a whole production run at once but I have been able to sell the lines surplus to my needs, which effectively pays for some lines for me to use.

richard

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Who resides on the right bank of the Derbyshire Wye and is lulled to sleep each night by the mutterings of a weir, dreaming that "When the rivers and their inhabitants come first, we ALL win..."

I don't think leader flash is important for us mere mortals. If it were so important, what about your rod flash, or your sunglasses reflection, or even the cpolour of the shirt you fish with. Successfull fly fishing is a combination of hundreds of small factors, that once all summed together, will result in a technically more rounded angler. I have seen it too often, where an angler can get far too hung up on an inconsequential detail, and not pay enough much attention to the real issues. Fly presentation is important yes, but how many anglers can actually present the correct fly , in the correct manner? For instance, when you fish a caddis, you present it in a certain way, and when you fish a grasshapper, you present it in another way. Dont underestimate the importance of a stealthy approach. The ability to control the drift as naturally, with as much water time as possible, is also very important. Knowing what fly to use in a given situation, and more importantly, how to fish it. Once you have all these basics firmly in place, then perhaps look at things like leader flash, rod glint, and sunglasses reflection, but you would be better served to get the tequnique prefected first, and once achieved, then you would be justified in addressing the more detailed issues. At the end of the day, it's about confidence, and if leader flash worries you, then by all means, take care of it, but would this give you any real advantage?... I don't think so.

Hi andreb, please forgive my disagreement with you on this point.

It has been my privilege and pleasure to spend time fishing with lots of anglers, many of whom are only newly introduced to the Sport. Their casting and presentation skills can be very limited indeed, sometimes they are only just able to get the fly on the water, BUT, I always make them pay fastidious detail to stealth and concealment, even to the point of lending them clothing of a more subdued colour and matt finished tackle and a brown flyline in the effort to earn them a chance of staying hidden whilst approaching and casting to their chosen quarry.

This achieves two things (usually):

It saves the day and ensures they catch a fish (or several)

It inculcates the important lesson that the fish must not be aware of the angler's presence (or even the presence of potential danger).

Presentation is, as you point out, very important but insufficient attention to all the details of stealth can impair the efficacy of great presentation. I truly believe stealth is the second most important aspect of our Sport (after observation). Really, the presentation to make the fish believe the artificial is actually the real thing is one more element, or detail, in the whole approach of being stealthy. Matt rods with no shiny varnish or glittering fittings, drab coloured fly lines, drab clothing, hats with full brims to shield the back of the polarised spectacles, protective overtrousers to facilitate crawling, even wearing a thick, drab coloured shirt in summer (which can make all the difference when crawling through nettles to avoid being seen by the fish), all these things are details but they are all very, very important.

richard

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Who resides on the right bank of the Derbyshire Wye and is lulled to sleep each night by the mutterings of a weir, dreaming that "When the rivers and their inhabitants come first, we ALL win..."

I absolutely forgive your dissgreement, with my post, and fully agree with everything you have said, which serves to re inforce what I was saying. All these factors you mention are important, but what I was getting to, was that the leader flash question, in isolation from everything else, is pointless. This is pretty much what you have said, and I agree fully.
I wouldn't take a newbie on a stream, and worry about leader flash before he even understands concealment and stealth.

Lots of great advice on this thread guys. I have had the fortunate circumstances to be able to experiment with a lot of this on gin clear stalking waters, and have noted some key observations.

Fish will react totally differently if they have been alerted to the possible danger of a fisherman being present (smart fish that is - not necessarily those just dumped into the lake a few hours ago). It's almost like they have two modes of operation - normal and wary.

Therefore, stealth is crucial. This can either be achieved through the water conditions helping us to be out of the fish's awareness (rippled water, cloudy water, etc.) or we will need to be "hidden" (in front of a tree-lined background, behind bushes, etc). It always amazes me how anglers stand on exposed platforms sticking out of the bank on clear waters and wonder why they don't catch much. It might be great for casting and covering lots of water, but you've scared the fish away - so what's the point?

Part of that stealth, as others have rightly stressed already here, is avoiding flash from our movements. Trees and bushes do not have glittering flashing movements going on, so if you start flashing all over the place it will alert the fish that something is wrong. The rod is an obvious candidate for providing this flash, as is the fly line. All my lines are very dull, with the exception of one I use at night for sea fly fishing (bass), which has a more visible section at the end for sheer practical purposes & bite detection.

However, back to the original question - should we dull the leader? The short answer is no! Hang on a minute, doesn't this contradict what I just said about flash? I'll start by assuming we are using fluorocarbon leaders and not monofilament. If you're not using fluorocarbon that should be the first change you should make. My experiments stalking fish in extremely clear water give a huge thumbs up for fluoro against mono. The whole point of fluoro is that it is almost invisible in water (similar refractive index). Therefore, if you put something on it you will make it more visible in water.

We are not concerned with how flashy something is in the air, we are concerned with how flashy it will appear from within the water. Large things (person, rod, fly line) will be visible by the fish even if they are in the air. A leader will not be visible in that way. Only when it is in the water, attached to the fly, will its visibility be relevant. Therefore, don't spoil something that has been designed to be invisible.

That's the theory - and it works in practice. I have experimented when hidden in trees or bushes, changing the fluoro thickness up to 30lb (stuff I use in the sea) with no impact on the fish whatsoever.

The movement of the fly is another topic, and something that is of massive importance to the end result ... but that is another matter.