My Understanding of Leader dynamics

[gkieser]

And i the same when bank and tube fishing which si why i distinguished between them in my thread.

Drift fishing is a different story though - You wanna find the fish, and the more variety you have the better.

[Mike Taylor]

Hi Grant,

I've recently been given a couple of articles to read on so-called "Hand-to-leader" fishing. They are fishing leaders up to 17m long! I would imagine that the leader construction is even more critical, but no-one mentions how the leader is made.

It seems a fairly radical shift from casting a fly-line to casting just a long leader, but the proponents swear by it, claiming that direct contact with the fly is far easier.

Do you have any idea how these ultra long leaders are made? (and how to cast them? !!!!) I'd like to make one up for David to play with before Protea trials.

[gkieser]

Sjoe! 17 metres! I haven't had any experience with those or read up about them. I'd imagine the construction would be pretty detailed but have no clue.

[swsmith]

How do u Cast a 17m Leader.....i guess they just let the Leader out and drift or kick away from it and troll

[GGY]

Hi Grant,

I've recently been given a couple of articles to read on so-called "Hand-to-leader" fishing. They are fishing leaders up to 17m long! I would imagine that the leader construction is even more critical, but no-one mentions how the leader is made.

It seems a fairly radical shift from casting a fly-line to casting just a long leader, but the proponents swear by it, claiming that direct contact with the fly is far easier.

Do you have any idea how these ultra long leaders are made? (and how to cast them? !!!!) I'd like to make one up for David to play with before Protea trials.

They are knotless tapered French-style leaders. I have an extra Hends 9m leader I could part with. Casting these is a technique that needs to be learnt.

[gkieser]

Are these leaders easy to cast with only half out the tip? What i mean, is what if i only want to cast 5m?

[GGY]

Are these leaders easy to cast with only half out the tip? What i mean, is what if i only want to cast 5m?

The casting stroke is different & can take some learning.

[JAG]

Gary Please help me out here.

My understanding of these ultra long leaders are that they are mainly for nymph fishing with some weighted nymphs. So in order to cast them you use the weight of the flies to some degree.

Is that correct.

[Mike Taylor]

As I understand it, these long leaders are for nymphing, although Mark Krige sometimes uses a fifty foot dry-fly leader. As for me - I struggle to get the fly to land where I want it with normal tackle anyway. I've tried googling Hand-to-leader fishing and all you find are post saying how good it is rather than explaining the setup and technique.

[dizzy]

I dont necessarily think long leaders are for nymphing exclusively?

From my experience the weight of the fly is not used in the casting. In most cases, I fish with almost un-weighted flies, 2.4mm generally being the heaviest I'd go on the long leaders.

These leaders are built to transfer energy in a way that they can be cast much like a fly line. I might be way off the mark, but at least this is what I've found.