Ok, I hear you... 1,5 times the rod length, or 4 meters is definatly not a long leader. its actually a very short leader for stillwaterts. When you are bank fishing and not drifting with the wind, I can understand not being able to fish effectively with a longer leader, but if you are drifting, the longer the rod, and the type of action, enables you to use the wind, with a nice open loop, to assist in carrying the leader out. With your leader setup, you not going to be able to fish an effective , three fly rig, with the flies a meter and a half apart. for me, two rod lengths or is a medium length leader, and a comfortable length for a three fly rig when using the breeze from behind. When bank fishing into the wind, then it needs to be shortened, and perhaps decreased to two flies a little closer together. Weight of the flies is also a factor to consider
Originally Posted by
Booger Rose
Hi Andre, I am not a very technical fisherman and tie down my leader and tippet just by the feel of what is happening. Long leader in my book is about 1,5 X my rod lenght. More than that and there is no way I can turn over the fly in any competant way, if at all. Especially not when fishing from my float tube. That mean not more than 14 ft if my maths ad up for the leader and tippet set-up.
If you want to fish deep, use a sinking line and heavy fly. In my book it is more important to fish upper layers early morning and late afternoon and that mean I will be surprised if the fly, even when fishing it very slowly and letting it sink down, will go down more that 1.5 metres. Maybe something to check in my swimming pool.
This very slow, big dragon fly nymph fishing also worked good in Bluegum Dam in the very deep corner next to the outlet tower. Water must be at least 20m deep there, but the trout would feed in upper levels.
Disclaimer.... none of my posts are intended to be "expert advice"..just opinions from someone who is willing to help where he can.
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