furled leader question

[9ft4wt]

I am a big fan of furled leaders and use them for all dry fly fishing. Another angler recently told me because of the thickness of the leaders that they can throw a shadow that spooks fish in clear water.

anyone ever had any experience with this?

9f4wt

[phg]

I am a big fan of furled leaders and use them for all dry fly fishing. Another angler recently told me because of the thickness of the leaders that they can throw a shadow that spooks fish in clear water.

anyone ever had any experience with this?

9f4wt

Thick compared to what?    I make mine out of 8/0 Uni-Thread, and the business end is pretty thin.  That, and the fact that the leader is so limp, I that I think it is grasping at straws to blame the leader for spooking fish.  Sloppy wading, sloppy casting, poor drift, etc. are all much more likely to cause a problem.

[troutphisher]

9ft4wt,

I don't use ferruled leaders for some of the same reasons. I tried them a couple of years ago, and the fishing was not as productive. I could also see the shadow projected by the leader on the bottom of the stream in  crystal clear water conditions. I also noticed when working the fly on the surface, such as twitching or skittering a caddis, the ferruled leader disturbed the surface more. This could play a role in spooking fish, when you cast over them while fishing up stream. If your fishing down stream to them, and keep just the tippet in view of the fish, then it probably has less impact.

The ferruled leader I used was a grey color, this color or any solid color can be seen easily against a blue sky , this also could cause fish to spook. Most times fish are looking at a sky blue background, or grey (depending on the weather conditions) against this background anything dark or solid color will show up very clearly, you get some relief from this when fishing broken water such as riffles, but then you might be inclined to change leaders often, to match conditions.
I found using tapered leaders can cover all conditions well.

For this reason I have switched back to a knot less tapered leader and use a 9ft 6x exclusively now where the colors are clear or a very opaque green tint. The connection to the fly line is a nail knot to make a very slim transition to the fly line. I have found the loop connections cause some of the same issues as ferruled leaders do. I use about 2-1/2 ft of 6x tippet in combination with a tapered leader and that has done very well for me, on dry fly's and nymphing small patterns on small clear creeks and trout that have had a lot of pressure put on them but other fisher's.
I don't fish larger patterns, like streamers or buggers, so this set up covers all of my fishing needs.

This is just my personal experience with ferruled leaders. Others have used them with success.


TP

[Trout Maharishi]

7X will cast a shadow on the stream bottom when the sun is overhead