French leaders?

[Korrie]

When I have a bit more time, I will write more about the French leaders..
When the formulas appeared in SA, we all fished it like normal leaders.
Thinking the long tippets reduced drag etc. Yes, it did, but not in the way that it was used by South African fly fishers

It is far more complicated than that.
There are numerous French leader formulas for instance for SMALL RIVER DRY FLY or for LARGE RIVER DRY FLY.
Pascal has a number of different leaders, the 2 mentioned, then there is a STANDARD "GENERAL" USE.
Another is LEADER WITH INDICATOR for NYMPH and DRY
LARGE RIVER FOR NYMPH AND DRY
LEADER FOR SPECIAL NYMPH SIGHT FISHING

When Pascal was here he showed us how to use SOME of the leaders with the casts.
The ultra long tippets was designed to be used with special casts.

[Cormo_rant]

I hope you post that korrie im very interested.
I had a chance to wiggle a 3wt 10ft sage esn the other day.I wasnt that impressed to be honest,it felt heavy for a 3wt.Im used to regular 3wt's though.
Andre you have the 2wt esn dont you.Does that feel nice in hand and does it have a nice progressive tip?

[Andre]

I hope you post that korrie im very interested.
I had a chance to wiggle a 3wt 10ft sage esn the other day.I wasnt that impressed to be honest,it felt heavy for a 3wt.Im used to regular 3wt's though.
Andre you have the 2wt esn dont you.Does that feel nice in hand and does it have a nice progressive tip?

Interesting, because the ESN is probably the lightest around. I guess you were feeling the swing weight which is normal for a 10 foot rod, especially one designed for the type of nymphing such as ESN.
Yes i have a 2 and have used to have a 3wt, which i sold in favour of the 2wt. The 2 and 3 wt ESN's are vastly different, but yes the 2wt feels great in the hand, when you are doing what it it designed to do, which is to cast a very long leader. If you are trying to cast 5 to 10 meters of flyline in a conventional fly fishing manner, it doesnt feel quite as good. I am not sure what you mean by a progressive tip, but I assume that you are referring to the taper of the tip, which thins down in an even or progressive taper. I think it does have a progressive taper, but the tip is not soft, yet not stiff ether. It doesn't wobble, but is very sensitive, especially for mono nymphing and the "leader to hand" style of french and euro nymphing. If you did the "wiggle" with the rod in the store, you would have noticed that the bulge travels quite far up and down the rod, and the tip moves relatively little. I have tried to translate the wiggle excercise into a rod fishing ability, but i cant really come to too many conclusions based on a wiggle test, but some people can and thats good.
In short, I love the 2 wt ESN, but don't try fish it outside of what it is designed to do, otherwise it becomes simply an average rod.