Fly Fishing Tips: Leaders
The make-up and length of the leader is very, very important and it has a dramatic effect on the casting performance of the line. For example, with a full floater a long leader is vital to create the ‘stick’ that loads the rod but with sinking shooting heads a short leader, often down to as short as a meter is best.
Guideline has just started to make tapered salmon leaders in differing lengths. Choose the Egor fluorocarbon tapered leaders and you will get a ready made leader that tapers down to the tippet.
Tapered leaders really are very important when salmon fishing because they turn over much better than level leaders. I make my own by combining lengths of stiff fluorocarbon (Frog Hair usually) with a tippet of Seagar in twenty four pounds. The leader is in three or four sections, starting with, typically, forty two pounds fluoro, followed by thirty-two followed by the tippet. I fully intend to try the new Egor leaders next season, however, as I have been assured by Hakan Norling of Guideline that they are superb.
The length of the leader can vary slightly but as a general rule the faster the sink rate of the line, the shorter the leader. With fast sinking lines I tend to keep the leader to around one to one and a half meters. For medium sink I go to 1.5 meters, two meters for slow sink and the float/sink series and 3 to 4 meters for the float/sink 1 and intermediate. For a full floater, a leader of a rod length plus is advisable.