What\'s the difference?
- Thread starter RodOfGod
- Start date
Second part first. Yes, and not only leader material. You need a fly as well, or at least something like a piece of wool tied to the business end of the leader.
It will be a completely different feeling casting without the fly, and casting without a leader will actually wreck the fly line in no time at all.
Main difference with he flies isn\'t so much the way they are tied but the way you fish them.
Simplified version is that dry flies float on the surface so you\'d use them when fish are seen to be taking insects etc there. This is usually as the water warms up, and sedges and daddy long legs can be seen, but there are occasional rises to surface food from quite early in the season.
Wet flies are fished under the surface, and can represent nearly anything a trout eats and quite a lot of things it wouldn\'t -I don\'t think anyone really knows what persuades a trout to take an imitation with anything like 100% certainty.
Lures are just larger versions of wet flies but are tied with no real intention to imitate anything in particular, but to get the trouts attention by the use of colour and materials that move in the water in a way that attracts the fish. I\'d bet that sometimes even lures are taken as real food items, such as leeches, large larvae such as dragon and damsel flies, and fish fry.
Nymphs are generally intended to represent the larvae/pupae of water dwelling insects and are fished in a way that matches as close as possible the natural behaviour of the insect you\'re imitating - in theory anyway. At times when a nymph is attracting no takes at all, speeding up the retrieve so it\'s faster than anything seen in nature will produce instant results.
There\'s actually quite an overlap between the different types. I fish a lot of traditional wet flies that double as dry flies when the fish are on top simply by treating them with floatant.
Best bet when you start out is find out what particular flies do well at the water you\'re fishing and get a selection. there\'ll probably be a mixture of wets, dries, nymphs and lures as most people eventually settle for a favourite method most of the time , with a few of the other types as a backup. Try them all at first until you find out which appeals to you most . The trout aren\'t all that fussy usually and most of the time all the different methods will work equally well.
The tippet is usually meant as the length of nylon knotted to the leader. When it gets too short due to cutting off a little bit every time you change flies, you simply knot on a new piece, instead of changing the whole leader.
Unless you\'re like me anyhow, and change the whole leader because everything is tangled into one giant ball of nylon.
Leader length is a matter of fashion to some extent, although a long leader can be useful if you\'re using a floating line but want the fly to sink that bit deeper.
Also useful if you want to fish three or more flies, and want to keep them spaced out. Not recommended when learning - or in windy weather.
Some folk regularly use leaders 20 ft or even longer, and the best of luck to them.
When starting I wouldn\'t go above 9 ft with maybe a 2 to 3 ft tippet.
If you use a length of level nylon as a leader I wouldn\'t even bother with the tippet, but stick to 9 ft overall. It\'s when you use a tapered leader that a tippet is most useful, as the leaders are too expensive to be changing them every five minutes.
That\'s for floating lines. Most people use similar leaders for sunk lines, but when fishing boobies it\'s not uncommon to see leaders as short as 1 ft in use.
Doesn\'t seem to put the fish off, so I don\'t really see why it should on a floating line. I have used 5 ft leaders with a dry fly and caught, but I don\'t make a habit of doing it (fishing with short leaders or catching fish).
Don\'t be conned into buying the sooper-dooper must-have leader material at umpteen pounds a 25 yard spool. It might be good, but it\'s not that good. One of the best I\'ve ever found is a brand called Stroft. It\'s not usually sold as a leader material, but is used for coarse (inc carp) fishing and is better than most at a fraction of the price - £5.00 for a 100yd spool in breaking srains from 2 to 10 lb.
Excellent replies from Ian D. You have probably seen lots of tapered leaders you can buy. I would tend to avoid these, at least until you\'re casting is going well as you can waste alot of money replacing hopelessly tangled leaders. If you want to taper your leader, tie gradually decreasing strengths of line together. It can improve presentation but for now just keep it simple. Stick to one fly as well. Teams of 3 are great when you can handle them but you probably want to spend more time fishing than replacing tangled leaders. I think you were a bit worried about losing your mates tackle in a tree. Get used to it or go somewhere with no trees 
dazzer
Well-known member
I personally never use above 4lb for wets/nymphs and when fishing dries I never go above 3lb.
I stick to either drennan sub surface green or drennan flouro carbon leader.
I know a lot of people think that this leader is too light but I have hooked and landed a 20lb3oz rainbow on 3lb leader.
Just make sure when using light lines that you do not put too much pressure on the fish and play it out properly until it comes to the top of the water on its side before netting it.
When the fish wants to run let it, it will get tired before you will.
A big fish will get tired quicker than a small one.
Until you are confident with using light lines I would stick to 6lb for nearly all situations, the only problem being that if the fish are feeding on very small flys and you are not getting takes on bigger things you might have a bit of a problem tying a size 22 fly on because of the diameter of the line.
I stick to either drennan sub surface green or drennan flouro carbon leader.
I know a lot of people think that this leader is too light but I have hooked and landed a 20lb3oz rainbow on 3lb leader.
Just make sure when using light lines that you do not put too much pressure on the fish and play it out properly until it comes to the top of the water on its side before netting it.
When the fish wants to run let it, it will get tired before you will.
A big fish will get tired quicker than a small one.
Until you are confident with using light lines I would stick to 6lb for nearly all situations, the only problem being that if the fish are feeding on very small flys and you are not getting takes on bigger things you might have a bit of a problem tying a size 22 fly on because of the diameter of the line.
Size 22??????? 
3lb line??
Crikey!!! Am used to 3/0 hooks and 30lb line
Cheers for the info.
I\'m still waiting for my rod to come from Glasgow Angling, ordered a reel from First Tackle at 4pm on wednesday & it came yesterday morning.
Going down Frasers later to get some bits & bobs, ordered some mill end line from John Norris aswell should be ok for learning shouldn\'t it? Need to get a landing net too.
Cheers......Mark
3lb line?? Crikey!!! Am used to 3/0 hooks and 30lb line
Cheers for the info.
I\'m still waiting for my rod to come from Glasgow Angling, ordered a reel from First Tackle at 4pm on wednesday & it came yesterday morning.
Going down Frasers later to get some bits & bobs, ordered some mill end line from John Norris aswell
should be ok for learning shouldn\'t it? Need to get a landing net too. Cheers......Mark
mark
Well-known member
for what its worth, when starting out, I\'d avoid a lot of potential problems by keeping things as simple as possible. I\'d suggest keeping the leader length about the same length, or just slightly longer than the rod length, increase it iof you feel confident to do so after a bit of practice. I wouldn\'t bother with seperate tippet material intially, just tie flies straight to the leader. Make the leader maybe a couple of foot longer at the beginning of the session to allow for the bits you\'ll lose when changing flies.
use perhaps 5 or 6lb leader, and again, don\'t go for daft money flouro carbons and stuff straight away. Cheap line as a leader, but well presented on casting will give you a better chance than expensive leader tippet material that lands in a heap and is full of knots.
Teams of flies are ok, but you need to be fairly confident with your casting to get them to present correctly.
use perhaps 5 or 6lb leader, and again, don\'t go for daft money flouro carbons and stuff straight away. Cheap line as a leader, but well presented on casting will give you a better chance than expensive leader tippet material that lands in a heap and is full of knots.
Teams of flies are ok, but you need to be fairly confident with your casting to get them to present correctly.
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