leader pile up

o.k., so i can cast my line out in a nice straight line fairly consistently,
avoiding "pile up", but my leader is piling up. i just put new leader on
day before yesterday, and it is pretty curly. is it because of that, or is
it related to my casting- or maybe something else? any ideas?

fished with my new blue winged olive today- a very cool fly- it got *lots*
of bites, but i didn't hook anything. i'm sure it was because i tried to
compress the barb, in an effort to make it easier to remove the hook. my
disappointment at losing so many fish is at odds with my effort to be as
humane as possible, and my desire to protect myself from injury, while
indulging in this endeavor :-(
but damn that fly got a lot of "hits"

snakefiddler