"Intellect Enabled" wrote


Question: is it best just to go ahead and use the nail knot (which is
working fine) or is there some reason to learn to tie this loop to
line?

I use the loops, a short section of Maxima needle nail knotted into the line
and a Perfection loop on the other end.

The loops does NOT go though the guides as well as a single knot, but I've
never had it cost me a fish.

I do change leaders fairly often, and sometimes on stream. The leader
construction I'd use on a windy day to cast a #18 PMD dry is very different
than what I'd use on a calm one, same river, same fly. I could "rebuild"
the leader butt to fit the situation but I prefer to just slip one off and
another one on ... laziness, for sure, but it works better for me ( I fished
several years using " a single leader per year' and didn't like it ). I
don't indicator nymph much, but when I do I use a very short stiff butt,
short transition and long tippet, I've tried casting dries with the same
leader and it is terrible, but very works well with weight and a bobber.

Another example? I recently fished Silver Creek and most days I would fish
downstream using a wimpy limpy LONG tippet, about 12 or 14 ft leader and a
Fall River twitch, to the fish sitting where they were available to that
presentation. When I reached the end of the area I intended to fish (
often defined by reaching another angler ) I would take a minute while
resting myself and the area to change to a much shorter, mostly butt, short
tippet ( 6 inches to a foot ) leader and work back upstream, casting across
stream to fish in tough lies, right on the bank or inches below exposed
weeds, fish that are nearly impossible to accurately cast to with either a
Fall River Twitch or a long wimpy leader. The short leader wouldn't give
more than a few inches of good drift, but greatly increased MY accuracy and
added fish to the "bag" that otherwise I wouldn't have gotten.

I have no doubt that those with greater skills than myself can "do it all"
with exactly the same leader ... I can't. And like the search for the
perfect "one rod for all fishing" I've given up on "one leader for all
fishing" and find loop to loop to be the best way to change to meet changing
conditions, mainly because I can spent the knot tying time indoors with no
wind, and good light instead of rebuilding on stream, with cold hands and
that rushed feeling feeding trout always instill in me.

YMMV