[SPAM] Technical stuff/leaders

Glad everything is OK down there. I have been enjoying the group emails very much-what a great idea for sharing so many ideas on this great sport. I thought I would just add something I learned from Glen Liming from Sylva, NC years ago that really works. He was a graduate from Harvard top in his class in the mid 60's and was instrumental for challenging me to look deeper into many things when I worked on my text in the early 90's. Glen never has taken up fishing of any kind but has a brilliant mind on observation and explaining the results--of even specialty type cast.

We all adjust leaders with varying lengths of stiff or supple materials when constructing leaders. It is this knowledge that enables us to match it for any task. Glen’s idea was to add a series of loops for connections rather than blood or surgeons knot. Not just a perfection loop with its normal connection, rather it remains open. Funny thing is that it works! He looked at it as being like a chain link. I used to play around with adding several of these links, which cause the energy flow to decrease quick depending on what I want the leader to do. It can in fact and theory, even use the same material and still dissipate energy flow to accomplish a similar result to a tapered leader of varying stiffness and diameters of material.

All of these ideas from a man who never built a leader-his answer on it was in less than a few seconds. Kind of made me think why I had not thought of it? Point being, we often accept certain things as gospel of always using blood or triple surgeons when constructing leaders. Some introspective ideas may often come from folks that are not indoctrinated with all of these gospels. Same thing, I think may hold true for all aspects of the sport when we look at it not from what we know but rather question what if? My friendship with glen has caused me to still question for practically everything I look at now in the sport.

We can tailor anything for equipment and skill to be optimal for a specific example on the water, but nothing holds true for all examples. It is for this reason that I think all of the leader formulas in all of the literature give folks a good idea where to start, but the appreciation of really tailoring them more through experience will be invaluable (wind, fly, conditions, equipment, etc.). It is the concept in other words that Harvey offers the sport for his slack leader, not the precise measurement of each segment of material. This is what we attempt to get across to students. I like the post from the other day as Jason said beginners get a bad cast, yet it generates slack. They work hard on their casting and then it goes straight. The presentation was better when they made bad cast-kind of ironic, but so true.

In the salt, I use loop-to-loop connections regularly. I use one between a Ron Hyde loop (1/2") at the end of the fly line to a 6X around Duncan loop of the leader butt section. For many situations, I marry a 1/2" Duncan loop at the end of my tapered section of nylon mono to a 1" surgeon's loop in my fluorocarbon tippet. As you point out, a perfection knot stands proud rather than collapsing straight, so If I wish to have the leader collapse at this point, I'll use that knot instead of the surgeon's loop....the, "chain link" effect, as you note, tends to dissipate any remaining energy at that point. I'd use the perfection loop to the fly.....but it's harder for me to tie than a Hufnagle loop, so I often use that one to the fly. (If I don't want a loop to the fly, I'll sometimes use the Uni knot pulled down tight to the eye of the hook....whereas, if I want the fly to track very straight on retrieve, I'll snell the tippet to the shaft of the hook and ignore the hook eye.) For a heavy FC bite tippet (shock tippet) I'll sometimes use the quick-and-easy Homer Rhodes loop there.....unless I'm big game fishing anticipating being on a fish for 2 hours or more. Then I don't like that one, because it will tend to pinch itself off at the end of a really long hard struggle.

For billfish and tarpon, I use a Bimini twist segment of class tippet to the bite (shock tippet) at the distal end...and for a 1/4" spring-loaded loop at the other end, I make a furl loop...then go back and furl the furl for a double furled 3" to 4" furled segment. The reason for that is to keep the two loops from jumping over one another as the fish jumps.

I could bore you with a couple of pages on the shock tippet section, alone.....but now we're getting a bit technical....so I'll stop here and refer those who really wish to know this specialty salt water leader stuff to :- FLYCASTING SYSTEMS, by Bill Nash. (A spiral bound book of salt water and other big game knots and leader systems second to NONE !) Bill is an FFF MCI out in California. You can purchase his book for under $ 20.00 by contacting him at: billsknots@xxxxxxx or : BNCO Publisher - 1045 Woodbine Way, San Jose, CA. 95117.

One little tidbit.....I save and test my SW big game leaders AFTER fighting a fish.....Big difference in the results with testing beforehand ! In doing this, I've learned a great deal including the fact that the Bimini Twist, while a 100% knot just after being tied, becomes the weakest link in the system after a long battle !!! I worked on this and came up with a new way to tie it which solves that problem. When I showed this to Lefty, he didn't believe me at first. A year later he did .