Leaders, More

Walter & Group...

From Ally Gowans :

Hi Gordy,

 

In the late 1950?s casting competitions and demonstrations were held each year in my home town of Dundee. Most of the great casters of that time including Ritz and Pierre Creusevaut attended. I was too young to appreciate the magnitude of the talent that surrounded me but some years later I was asked by the local fly shop to do fly casting demonstrations at a small show nearby and this was my first public ?appearance? (around 40 years ago!). With me at that event was a charming man named Bert Farrish who was the Scottish representative for Farlow?s fishing tackle and Farlow?s were agents for Pezon & Michel who made the most exquisite cane rods and employed Creusevaut.

This story was told to me by Bert. When Pierre came to the UK Bert was assigned to look after him and became one of his confidants, responsible for ensuring that all of the rods etc. that Pierre needed were instantly to hand during demonstrations and for guarding the tackle when not in use. Like all of us I guess Pierre had a few little tricks that helped his demonstrations one of which was accuracy casting where he was able to ?hover? the fly much better than anyone else, a feature of his casting that amazed audiences.

During these times Bert was sworn to secrecy but with Pierre retired Bert shared the secret of the extended hover with me. Creusevaut?s leader was tied with a precise taper and additional knots were left with tags to absorb the energy and produce wind resistance which slowed the fall of the leader (bit like a ?grass? leader). A good example of using the leader to achieve the required presentation and probably the result of much experimentation beforehand. Bert was instructed to keep the leader in his pocket and attach it at the last minute and immediately the rod was handed back to remove the leader!

 

Now I?m sharing the secret ? hope that its of interest.

Best regards,

Ally Gowans

See my web sites http://www.letsflyfish.com and http://www.flyfish-scotland.com

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Ally....  Tricks to every trade !  I wonder if his fly was of his choosing or if it was a standardized one as with our tournaments.

Fly choice could make a difference, too.

That is a leader ploy I'd never considered.   I can see how it would work, though.

Gordy

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From Troy Miller....

Wow, lots of interesting stuff in this message. Two that I'd like to touch on briefly (I'm on my Blackberry again, not good for long answers...)

Serendipity or artistic justice, I don't know which - Lefty's note about profile and density of the fly is spot on. Fortunately most of the applications for bushy flies don't require delicate tippets - not casting too many #12 Wulffs on a flat pool of a spring creek? Tiny sparsely dressed midges, comparaduns, chironamids, etc are typically the ones that fish are most finicky about the leader design. Same regarding wind leader design. There IS a God!

Aitor in my opinion is incorrect re: lead ball doesn't fall faster because it's more efficient overcoming drag. Terminal velocity of an object has EVERYTHING to do with how efficient an object overcomes drag. Involved are size and shape of the object, difference in density of the object relative to the medium it is falling through, and whether there is anything confining the system. For instance, a pipe of 2 inch inside diameter and filled with water would result in different terminal velocities if you dropped two balls, one with 1.0" diameter and one with 1.9" diameter - even though the balls were the same density. There's little room for the displaced water to get by the larger ball, so in effect the ball acts like its own parachute. Terminal velocity is ALL about drag...

I have quite a bit to say about leader design and performance, hopefully I can type something up tonight.

Troy

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Troy...   I appreciate your lending us some of your engineering expertise.  Makes sense to me.      G.

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 We've been discussing leader turnover.   Argument persists over whether stiff leaders turn over better than soft ones despite general agreement that the most important factor is the mass profile just as with fly lines.

 

I ran some crude "experiments" using stiff and soft leader material for the butt sections and tapered sections of my salt water leaders while trying my best to maintain approximately the same mass profile of each.   The same fly, line and rod were used.

 

On days with cool temperatures (60 - 70 degrees) I got better turnovers with the soft material leaders.  On very hot days (around 90 degrees) the stiff leaders turned over better.

 

Then I got to thinking that this was simply because the higher temps softened what had been the stiffer material.

 

Then I tried the same thing using a large/heavy fly.  The stiff leader turned over more efficiently when it was cool or hot. 

 

Still didn't answer my questions which remain:- 

 

 1.)  When casting in moderate temperatures using leaders of approximately the same mass profile, do leaders formed from soft material turn over better than those made from stiff materials ?

 

 2.)  Did the stiff leader turn the large/heavy fly over better because the greater forces involved bent the stiff material (briefly storing greater latent energy ) and then unbent with sufficient energy release to turn over that heavy fly ?

 

Gordy

 

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Bruce Richards sends his answer to my questions (Prefaced by *****    G. :-

 

1.)  When casting in moderate temperatures using leaders of approximately the same mass profile, do leaders formed from soft material turn over better than those made from stiff materials ?

 

****I haven't done the same kind of testing you have, but leader theory is the same as fly line theory and that theory says that, within the stiffness ranges of the materials commonly used, the mass of the material is by far the most important factor in turnover.   BR

 

 2.)  Did the stiff leader turn the large/heavy fly over better because the greater forces involved bent the stiff material (briefly storing greater latent energy ) and then unbent with sufficient energy release to turn over that heavy fly ?

 

*****Possibly, but it would seem to me that if the material was stiff enough to store enough energy to make a difference it would also be stiff enough to open the loop, which would be counterproductive. Small differences in the mass profile of leaders will make a difference, is it possible that this differences were responsible for your observations, not the stiffness? Hard to explain how the stiffness would make much difference...

 

Bruce