How To Set Up A Fly Fishing Leader

We can do to maximize our chances of success, a good pair of Polaroid glasses for spotting, clothing colour to match the environment, a stealthy approach, the ability to cast well, minimal false casting, accurate casting, eliminating line or rod flash, the list goes on.

But, apart from fly choice, I believe that the leader is the next most important component in fooling large trout. The leader has to be small enough as to remain invisible to the fish, yet strong enough to enable the fisherman to land the fish. More importantly though, the leader has to be long enough that your fly lands far enough upstream of the trout that the fly has sufficient drift to drift in to the trouts feeding zone, and at the same time allowing the fly-line to land far enough downstream so as not to disturb or spook the trout. There is no more simple a way to spook a large, wary trout than to cast your fly-line to land within the trouts cone of vision. Also because of the clarity of the water and the size of the trout, it is very easy to be fooled in to thinking the water you are fishing is not that deep. The deeper the water, the greater the trouts cone of vision, the greater the chance of the trout you are fishing to seeing your bulky, possibly bright coloured fly-line.

In my circle of fishing friends, it is usual to fish with leaders in excess of 16ft, sometimes up to 20ft. Many visiting fishermen use much shorter leaders, and for their style of fishing short leaders are probably adequate. But in order to increase the success rate on landing quality fish in demanding conditions we need to start stacking the odds in favour of the fisherman. And second only to fly choice, leader type and length is the next on the list.

The easiest way I find to make up a long leader is to use a readily available 13ft leader, 3 or 4x, and then add sufficient length of appropriate tippet to achieve the length I am after. If you don't have along leader available, another method is to cut and old leader back to 3 or 4 ft of butt section and then bloodknot a new leader on to that. And then add your tippet. This has an advantage if you are fishing in windy conditions and need a leader with a bit more backbone. Fishing with a long leader is no different that fishing with a shorter leader and so long as you have your casting basic's right, a long leader is no more difficult to cast than a shorter leader. Having said that, I often meet up with fishermen that are having difficulty casting a long leader or wont even bother to try - severely decreasing their chances of hooking in to a trophy trout.

Make sure you have the basic's right, strong backcast and subsequent forward cast, use a pistoning action rather than a rolling action for your casting arm, ensuring your rod tip is traveling horizontally rather than in a large arc. I was taught the old English style of casting, stiff upper lip sort of stuff old chap, 10 to 2, don't bend your wrist etc etc. Over the years I have found this to be a rather stifling style of casting and have added a number of variations to my own casting that make it far more adaptable and enjoyable. I tend to use a lot of wrist action, and for delicate presentations with long leaders you will need to add a some wrist action and snap at the end of your cast.

One of the most common problems I have encountered is fishermen making great false casts and then failing to complete the cast because of an underpowered or limp delivery cast. One way to cure this problem is to ensure that you delivery cast is at least as strong as your false cast's or stronger. The technique I prefer to teach when I am instructing is to hold the line for the delivery cast, don't present it as many do, or don't give the line to the cast. Holding the line, at the length that you have determined from your false casting is appropriate, causes the line to snap out to its full length and subsequently the leader rolls out to its full length, maximum distance from you fly-line.

Another common mistake is to cast to the fish, rather than casting to the horizon. By picking a spot on the horizon you concentrate more on casting horizontal to the water rather than at it. Casting horizontal to the water and allowing the fly-line and full length leader to drop gently to the water gives a delicate presentation and consequently increases your chance of success. If you would like to increase your success rate, particularly on large trophy trout, I would suggest using a long leader as a good starting point. It may take some changes to ensure you are taking advantage of the longer length, but changes that will greatly improve your fishing skill base.

Long leaders are not appropriate for every occasion, particularly in the wind, but that is another whole topic for another article.