Morning/afternoon/evening

I have a problem that I haven’t been able to find much literature on, and so perhaps someone on the forum can help??

When fishing dries, I have trouble with my leader becoming very twisted. To the point where the leader needs to be discarded after only a relatively short amount of time because it becomes so twisted on itself. Straightening out the twists by running it through a leather pad etc only solves the problem for a very short time, before it twists straight back up.

Obviously fishing larger dries, with large hackles, you would expect them to turn when moving through the air due to the air resistance, but this seems very excessive.

So my question is: is this purely down to poor leader choice? i.e. too small a diameter for the fly size, or conversely too large an X size Or is it down to a casting error which could be amplify this twisting?

To give you some background, I’m fishing a 9foot #5, 5X Tapered leader, a foot and a half of 6X tippet for a size 12 deer hair Royal Coachman.

(Also, wind doesn’t seem to be a factor, as this has happen regularly and on windless days)

Any advice is appreciated,

Cheers

I dont know if this is the done thing in flyfishing (or if it would adversely affect casting) having only just taken it up, but a solution would be to incorporate a tiny microswivel between leader and tippet. This sort of linetwist is common in coarse fishing when undertaking retrieves at speed but depending on the shape of the bait or in this case fly it is sometimes unavoidable. A tiny swivel will stop it spreading to leader.

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Around the steel no tortur'd worm shall twine,
No blood of living insect stain my line;
Let me, less cruel, cast feather'd hook,
With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook,
Silent along the mazy margin stray,
And with fur-wrought fly delude the prey

I would imagine it being caused by the tippet your using, the biggest fly I would use with a 6X tippet would be a 16, and even at that I would rather use a 5X. Try using a 4X, or even a 3X with a big bushy fly like that. Tippet sizes should be chosen to suit the fly being used, here is a rough guide -
0X sz2-6
1X sz4-8
2X sz4-10
3X sz6-12
4X sz8-14
5X sz12-16
6X sz16-20
7X sz20-24
8X sz24 and smaller

Hope this helps.

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Murtol is, I believe, correct.

Generally speaking a dry fly, because of its structure / construction, has far more air resistance than a wet fly and particularly a nymph. Consequently, if the tippet is too light the dry fly will tend to 'spin' and put excessive twist into the tippet. larger dry flies such as Humpies and Stimulators are very prone to this.

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I'd go with that - not just the size of the fly but the air resistance caused by the degree of bush. A stiffer tippet is what's needed - and the guide list provided is really useful. I would usually use a 3x or 4x with a size 12 and certainly a 3x with a stimulator or CDC elk.
GD

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So would you say its just the tippet being too light, or the entire leader?

Hi Tangles
You don't say which material you are using, if it is copolymer then I would totally agree with all that has been said try and stick around the 3X at the point or at a pinch the 4X. If you are using mono the I would have said the 4X should be OK.
I suspect the "pigtailing" is caused by the fly spinning during casting hence the twist.

SteveC

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Stephen Cheetham GAIC ADB
www.fishingwithstyle.co.uk

Tippet too light...Also, a stiff collar hackle sometimes acts a a propeller. I never had this problem untill I started to use genetic capes then it appeared as if by magic! Also I noticed that it didn't happen with a size sixteen Klink' but put a size sixteen collar hackled fly on and presto, twist.

Just up your tippet diameter and you should be fine (I use Bayer Perlon for all my dry fly-tippet by the way it's cheap, tough and reliable).

Thanks for the info. Will go up an X size when out next then.

Much appreciated

Winged dries (Adam's for example) can have that effect if the wing slips aren't perfectly matched. I had some a while back that were so bad you could hear the twist as the fly went past, sounded like a flight of spitfires

A 'microswivel' is out milo, it will cause more problems than it will likely solve.

Proper leader construction should help prevent it, as described by some of the other posters.

Cheers,

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Adam
"Dum vivimus, vivamus."

http://www.adamhughes.net