Making leaders for fly fishing salt water.

Question
Mr.Schmidt.  I just started to fly fish in salt water. I am going to St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, I moved from Minnesota to Florida so that is why I want to do salt water fishing.  Do you know of any patterns for making fly fishing leaders for inshore fishing for bonefish, permit, small tarpon and snook. Can you use any of the above leaders for the various fish?
Thank you for your time and consideration.
                 Jerry Stone

Answer
Pretty broad question, Mr. Stone, but I'll give it a shot.  I'll assume you're new to saltwater fly fishing, but have experience in fresh.  Frankly, I quit making my own leaders years ago, as there are many excellent leaders available commercially.

Basically, there's no difference in the tying from what you would do for a freshwater leader; the only difference is in the material used.  That is, you need stronger leader material due to the increased size and strength of the fish.

I don't understand the second question: "Can you use any of the above leaders for the various fish?"  You don't specify a particular leader in your question, so which leaders are you referring to?  If you can be more specific, I'll be glad to expand my answer.

Any leader you tie, as with freshwater leaders, will start with heavy mono (perhaps as much as 60-pound-test), and end with a tippet that matches the quarry and your rod and line weight.  Remember that snook have sandpaper-like teeth, which will fray a leader quite quickly, and a razor-sharp edge on their gill covers which will slice mono like a knife with the slightest touch.  This means line diameter is more important than pound-test for this species.

Please feel free to query further with more details.  There is some information on fly fishing the flats in my book, "Good Luck and Tight Lines," but not a great deal.  You can probably get it through an inter-library loan if you don't want to buy it, and I'd suggest you don't buy it for the flyfishing information alone.  The small amount of space dedicated to lines and leaders won't be worth the purchase price.  It's more a tutorial on catching fish on the flats in general than advice for a particular discipline.

Hope this helps.

RG