"clamus" wrote in message
...
Here is my question, do you tie the fly directly to the leader or you add
a lenght of tippet materiel to it? If you tie the fly directly to the
leader, when do you discard the leader?

Learning


Fair question.

Leaders have a 'sweet spot' where the length is just right to turn over a
fly, present the fly well, and keep the fly far enough from the flyline to
not spook the fish. New tapered leaders are usually quite a bit longer than
that sweet spot, so you have two choices with a brand new leader: either
fish it as is until you have cut it back a few times and it is at the sweet
spot, or else just cut it back to the sweet spot immediately. People do
both.

Once its at (or just shorter than) that length, you have only one option:
tie on some tippet. If you don't do this, you'll only get another dozen
flies out of the tippet and none of them will be at that good length. When
you DO tie on some tippet, you can get about 10 or 12 flies out of it before
you have to retie another section of tippet on. Then you can repeatedly
replace the tippet and keep the leader at that good length for quite a
while, dozens and dozens and dozens of flies. Personally, I cut off the
tippet and retie a new length whenever the leader-tippet knot gets within
8-10 inches of the fly, or so. The knot is a slightly stiffer part of the
leader, and if it gets too close to the fly it will affect the turnover, and
also catch a lot of crud from the water and spook the fish. On the other
hand, I hate wasting all that tippet by discarding more than 10 inches.

Eventually, you will have cut the leader back until its into the thicker
section. At that point, tie on some thicker tippet, and then tie on the
tiny tippet to that and start the cycle all over. This way, you ought to get
several months or more out of the butt end of leader, and be able to cast
over 100 flies on it. Without using tippet, you will get about 15 flies on a
leader and have to discard them several times a day.

--riverman