My Understanding of Leader dynamics

[dizzy]

Ok, I was refering more to the weight rather than lenght.
Length isn't a problem for me was just curious

Thanks

[gazzarowan]

ah haha

i dont think the weight is much of an issue hey...ill test it on my smaller rods and revert

could also start thinner, and make the sections slightly longer

[GGY]

ya...used maxima until adding the tippet.

boiled the leader...
start taking out and softly stretching the end (thinner end) of the leader after 40seconds, slowly boiling each slightly thicker section a few seconds longer.
in the end, the butt section should boil for about 2 - 2.5 minutes.
all-in-all, i get an extra 20-30cm stretch from this leader. difinitely helped with the 6x on the end absorb the head shakes and hard runs.

The French recommend boiling the leader material, before cutting to length, not the tied leader itself, for 3-4 min, but not the tippet section. The stretch comes from the fact that the leader material 'shrinks' during the boiling process as the monomer (which is why nylon = Maxima & not copolymer is to be used) relaxes.
See my other post with the zipped Excel file - you can plot your leader profile vs relative stiffness. Making a seemingly minor change to diameter or section length can have quite dramatic effects.

[Mike Taylor]

here it is

28cm 05x (0.432mm)
56cm 03x (0.381mm)
56cm 01x (0.330mm)
56cm 0x (0.279mm)
33cm 2x (0.229mm)
33cm 4x (0.178mm)
50cm 5x (0.152mm)
84cm 6x (0.127mm)

Thanks for this. I'll tie one of these up today and see whether David can cast it when he's home on the weekend. Unfortunately, if you're a competitive angler, you have to stay up-to-date with developments.

[gazzarowan]

The French recommend boiling the leader material, before cutting to length, not the tied leader itself, for 3-4 min, but not the tippet section. The stretch comes from the fact that the leader material 'shrinks' during the boiling process as the monomer (which is why nylon = Maxima & not copolymer is to be used) relaxes.
See my other post with the zipped Excel file - you can plot your leader profile vs relative stiffness. Making a seemingly minor change to diameter or section length can have quite dramatic effects.

interesting...

thank you for this Gary. will test it out. was always curious how it would affect my knots. havent had issues so far, but you never know.

[GGY]

interesting...

thank you for this Gary. will test it out. was always curious how it would affect my knots. havent had issues so far, but you never know.

BTW - have you plotted your leader in my Excel file? Very smooth profile - where did you get it from?

[freestone]

Great article Grant and very nice spreadsheet, Gary. Your desire, Gary, to work with smoother curves makes a lot of sense to me. Interesting parrallels with rod design.

Now you just need to add in the different elastic moduli of the different lines to your equations for even greater accuracy

Would be interesting to mic some knotless tapered leaders and see how they graph out in your spreadsheet.

The obvious advantage of tying your own leaders is that you can customise them to how you like them. I used to tie my own leaders for this reason (essentially using Gary Borger's uni leader as a starting point, but also playing with MC's ones), but I find I can adapt the end portions of knotless leaders so that they work well enough in most instances. I don't need to boil leaders because I fish bamboo rods which give you the cushioning.

For me the single biggest advantage of knotless leaders is having no knots going through the guides. When fishing with a leader more than twice the length of your rod, you have to wind at least some of it in through the guides. When you come to pulling the line out again, the knots bump up against the guides. This bugs me. I also don't like winding knots into the guides when playing a fish off the reel. That last dash can be fatal if a knot causes resistance at the wrong moment.

I like to superglue my leader into the flyline and then use the hookeeper and simply wind the leader in....and it pulls out again perfectly smoothly.

Steve