knotted leader/tippet help

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

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.

"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

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

...the price size...

More precisely, that should read "precise size".

Wolfgang

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

"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

"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)

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

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.

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.