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#1
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I thought I'd interject a little fly fishing topic.
After turning my nice new tapered leader into a much shorter version due to wind knots, I've learned how to tie the brutal blood knot, which I suspect was named after legions of anglers who blew the corresponding vessel while trying to tie the damn thing. Anyway, I've lost several feet off my formerly 4X taper and am now up to a 2X. A couple questions: Q. Is it practical to drop a couple mils at a time on an all-knot leaders or should it always be 1 mil at a time? Q. What are good "rule of thumb" lengths for each size from butt to tippet for a med trout stream? I've seen some hair-raising equations, but am not interested in getting quite that fanatical at this point. Q. I've been buying 20 yd Trilene XL leader spools at $1.50 per, a great price. But, since I'm no doubt going to be breaking these suckers off wholesale, forever, would it be better to invest in Trilene fishing line? IOW, is it the same stuff? I have a spool of .009 XL fishing line which I used to extend out my shortened taper line. Is this ok? nb |
#2
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notbob wrote:
I thought I'd interject a little fly fishing topic. After turning my nice new tapered leader into a much shorter version due to wind knots, I've learned how to tie the brutal blood knot, which I suspect was named after legions of anglers who blew the corresponding vessel while trying to tie the damn thing. Learn to tie a surgeon's knot. http://www.killroys.com/knots/surgeon.htm It's stronger than a blood knot, faster and easier to tie, and works far better for lines of very different diameters. Not quite a pretty , though. -- Cut "to the chase" for my email address. |
#3
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![]() "notbob" wrote in message ... I thought I'd interject a little fly fishing topic. After turning my nice new tapered leader into a much shorter version due to wind knots, I've learned how to tie the brutal blood knot, which I suspect was named after legions of anglers who blew the corresponding vessel while trying to tie the damn thing. Anyway, I've lost several feet off my formerly 4X taper and am now up to a 2X. A couple questions: Q. Is it practical to drop a couple mils at a time on an all-knot leaders or should it always be 1 mil at a time? Yes, it's practical. In fact, it would be difficult to avoid.....and there's no reason to. Q. What are good "rule of thumb" lengths for each size from butt to tippet for a med trout stream? I've seen some hair-raising equations, but am not interested in getting quite that fanatical at this point. I long ago encountered a simple formula that has worked very well for me. Start with about thirty inches on 30 lb. test nylon mono. Add increasingly smaller diameter line segments (the price size or strength doesn't really matter all that much but 20 lb., 15, 12, 10, 6 works nicely). Each segment should be 2/3 the length of the previous one until you get down to 10 inches or so. From there, the remaining segments should each be 10 inches. Then just add tippet. Q. I've been buying 20 yd Trilene XL leader spools at $1.50 per, a great price. But, since I'm no doubt going to be breaking these suckers off wholesale, forever, would it be better to invest in Trilene fishing line? IOW, is it the same stuff? I have a spool of .009 XL fishing line which I used to extend out my shortened taper line. Is this ok? I've always used the cheapest crap I could find at K-Mart for building the leaders. Works fine. Tippet is another matter. Wolfgang |
#4
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![]() "Wolfgang" wrote in message ... ...the price size... More precisely, that should read "precise size". Wolfgang |
#5
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On 2008-04-15, Wolfgang wrote:
Tippet is another matter. First, How so? Second, was the tippet on my original taper somehow different than the rest of the leader or is a tapered leader just that and I was supposed to add a tippet? nb |
#6
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![]() "notbob" wrote in message ... On 2008-04-15, Wolfgang wrote: Tippet is another matter. First, How so? Your choice of tippet will depend on more than simple diameter or strength. Not that these considerations should be ignored, but other factors also come into play. Stiffness versus limpness, memory, some people think color matters. Second, was the tippet on my original taper somehow different than the rest of the leader or is a tapered leader just that and I was supposed to add a tippet? In principle, the skinny end of a knotless tapered leader IS the tippet. Generally though, when people speak of tippet they refer to added material. You can fish for a while with the factory end of the leader as tippet but you'll quickly notice that it gets thicker and stiffer with each change of bug. Since most commercial tapered leaders are fairly to very short anyway, you might as well save time (and generally improve performance) by snipping off a few inches on the leader straight out of the package.....it's quite likely weaker than tippet of the same diameter anyway, and it is often considerably out of round.....and tying in a suitable amount of the tippet material. Regardless of whether you use knotless leaders or tie your own, you get just so many rebuilds before you have to start a new one. Typically, I get more out of home made leaders, and they perform better. Lots cheaper too. Wolfgang |
#7
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"rw" wrote in message
m... Learn to tie a surgeon's knot. http://www.killroys.com/knots/surgeon.htm It's stronger than a blood knot, faster and easier to tie, and works far better for lines of very different diameters. Not quite a pretty , though. 1. Prior experience with the surgeon's knot is needed before you can get the link lengths anywhere near specifications: but this can be learned. 2. When I tie with surgeon's knots the leader is not straight, but deviates at each knot by 20+ degrees. Is this RW's "non-prettiness" or just bad tying technique? -- Don Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) |
#8
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On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:41:37 -0400, "Don Phillipson"
wrote: "rw" wrote in message om... Learn to tie a surgeon's knot. http://www.killroys.com/knots/surgeon.htm It's stronger than a blood knot, faster and easier to tie, and works far better for lines of very different diameters. Not quite a pretty , though. 1. Prior experience with the surgeon's knot is needed before you can get the link lengths anywhere near specifications: but this can be learned. 2. When I tie with surgeon's knots the leader is not straight, but deviates at each knot by 20+ degrees. Is this RW's "non-prettiness" or just bad tying technique? The "unstraightness" is intrinsic to a double-surgeons knot. A triple-surgeons knot, otoh, is straight...and prettier, I suppose... /daytripper |
#9
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Don Phillipson wrote:
"rw" wrote in message m... Learn to tie a surgeon's knot. http://www.killroys.com/knots/surgeon.htm It's stronger than a blood knot, faster and easier to tie, and works far better for lines of very different diameters. Not quite a pretty , though. 1. Prior experience with the surgeon's knot is needed before you can get the link lengths anywhere near specifications: but this can be learned. 2. When I tie with surgeon's knots the leader is not straight, but deviates at each knot by 20+ degrees. Is this RW's "non-prettiness" or just bad tying technique? As an ex-blood-knot guy this used to bother me a lot. After I got better at tying the surgeon's it became less of a problem. I don't think my surgeon's knots make anywhere near a 20 degree angle, but they aren't as true as blood knots. I use the blood knot in heavy mono where it's easy to tie. -- Cut "to the chase" for my email address. |
#10
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daytripper wrote:
The "unstraightness" is intrinsic to a double-surgeons knot. A triple-surgeons knot, otoh, is straight...and prettier, I suppose... I agree that the triple surgeon's is better, but I'm usually in too much of a hurry. :-) -- Cut "to the chase" for my email address. |
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