Your most common leader length and weight?

[tjm]

1 hour ago, Orey10m said:

all the knots in the line,

Perhaps you can simplify your recipe, 3 or 4 knots should make a 7'-9' leader, I never found an extruded leader that suited me and after modification had knots anyway. I believe knots to be beneficial in stiffening and adding weight to the leader; but jmo.

If you use Borger's style with ring, there's one knot plus the ring between the line and the tippet. Gary goes with a smaller butt than I do, he uses .013", I believe his rule is 30% diameter drop  from line to butt and 30% diameter drop at each transition- something like 4' of .013 + 1' of .009 + ring + tippet

[snagged in outlet 3]

Just get these and add tippet material to the loop.  Works great!!

https://www.feather-craft.com/feather-craft-lucky-dog-leader

[ColdWaterFshr]

1 hour ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

Just get these and add tippet material to the loop.  Works great!!

https://www.feather-craft.com/feather-craft-lucky-dog-leader

Those are nice.  I've bought a few of those and they work well.

[tjm]

 Used to see an old guy fishing Z2 RRSP with weighted egg-balls and nymphs, that simply used ~30" of 4X loop to loop to the fly line and he caught as many trout as anyone. The line acted as indicator and suspension device, no knots in leader except the surgeon loop to the line which was also a surgeon loop. No kinks either.

[Devan S.]

8 hours ago, tjm said:

 Used to see an old guy fishing Z2 RRSP with weighted egg-balls and nymphs, that simply used ~30" of 4X loop to loop to the fly line and he caught as many trout as anyone. The line acted as indicator and suspension device, no knots in leader except the surgeon loop to the line which was also a surgeon loop. No kinks either.

Woah woah woah.....you mean your supposed to use something besides that?

 

My simpleton brain works like such.....dry flys I use 2lb mono from fly line direct to lure maybe 3 ft. 

Sub surface- 3x to 7x tippet from fly line straight to lure maybe 3ft. 

 

You mean there is another section/sections of line supposed to be used?

[tjm]

hey, it's been years and years since I saw you over there good to know you're still at it- it was you? 

4 hours ago, Devan S. said:

You mean there is another section/sections of line supposed to be used?

People like Brooks and Harvey would say there need to be 5 or 15 more pieces of differing sizes in there, Whitlock uses 8-9

Just for fun -  https://macbrownflyfish.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/leader-formulas.pdf

[Devan S.]

Nope not me. 

I was never really taught how to fly fish....more or less just bought a cheap ready to fish combo and made it work. 

I figured the leaders like I was doing wasn't much different than spin fishing and it seemed to be a lot easier than tapers and the like. 

[fishinwrench]

I think we've visited this topic before..... probably 30 times. 

I spin them up like this, from 8# Trilene mean green.   Works great for Trout and panfish.   I use 12# for bigger-nastier critters.

 

A true "furled" leader (constructed on a jig) will spin your tippet up like crazy....the harder you pull, the more it spins.    These don't do that.  👍

[netboy]

I just use 6 feet of 8lb mono tied to the fly line with a nail knot and then a tippet ring at the end followed by about 18" of 6x fluorocarbon tippet.

[FishnDave]

I usually go with a 0X Tapered leader...cut the thin end off...probably end up with about 4.5' butt section...tie a loop in the front end, add about 4.5' +/- of tippet...8lb Fluoro usually for subsurface trout and sunfish, and 12lb Fluoro for bass, carp, etc.  Most often, I'm fishing a 6wt.

8lb seems like overkill for trout, but I used to have a lot of problems with trout teeth shredding 6lb mono tippet way too often.  And I had too many bass breaking 8-10lb tippet.  So...this has worked for me.  I try to keep it simple.

But I may have to make some adjustments to this in the future....some of the waters here in MO are very clear...which I didn't often experience in IA.