Flylines

There was a good sized trout just ahead of us within easy casting range. I had seen him rise several times, but we weren't getting the job done. It was almost as if there was a lid over the spot - some sort of magic dome that kept repelling our flies.

My client, Bill, cast again and again to the left and right, all around the spot, but he couldn't seem to hit it. The situation was becoming increasingly tense; we both knew the trout would not endure too many more bad casts in his territory before he was gone.

"The wind is messing me up," Bill complained. "I just can't do it."

I didn't believe the problem was casting alone. Bill was showing a reasonably good stroke. At close range I felt he should be able to put the fly on the target even with a moderate head wind blowing.

"Bring your fly back and let me check your leader," I said.

All too often, intermediate fishermen, still unsure of their skills, blame themselves for failure when in fact their equipment which is not properly tuned.

Sure enough when I inspected the leader I found a hinge; a spot where tippet had been added but the leader diameters had not been matched correctly. When I pushed the leader up in an arch over the offending knot it was clear that the larger diameter taper was much stiffer than the smaller diameter tip. The leader was collapsing at this point.

The energy from the cast could not go all the way to the end of the line. The tip of the leader and the fly were blowing randomly in the wind.

Learning to adjust the leader in the field is a skill as critical to angling success as casting or choosing the right fly.

To become proficient with leader construction, I encourage all anglers to build and fish hand tapered leaders for a while. The experimentation in working with different tapers will quickly teach the mechanics of how leaders work. You will understand your leader better, and be able to judge when it is working properly when it has failed. When it fails you will know how to fix it with a minimum of fuss.

Building leader is not complex. The average leader is built roughly along the design of 30 percent level butt section; this area of the taper transfers the energy from the line into the leader. The next 40 percent of the leader is taper. This part of the leader becomes gradually smaller in diameter until you reach the size of the tip.

On hand built leaders, the taper section is made up of small four to six-inch sections of leaders, each smaller in diameter, knotted together. The tip, the last 30 percent of the leader, is the section that masks the rest of the line and leader from the fish.

With Bill's leader we had to rebuild a portion of the taper. We added two small six inch sections of leader, each one smaller than the next to the end of Bill's commercial tapered leader. This gave us the energy transmission we needed without a sharp step down in diameter.

After rebuilding the taper we tied on a new tip section, approximately 30 percent of the leader length. We didn't measure anything, we eyeballed it all, roughing out the lengths as we went. Exact measurements are not needed. After we had finished I tied on the fly and tested the leader off to the side away from the fish. It turned over beautifully setting the fly gently on the water.

"You try," I said to Bill as I handed him the rod. Suddenly he could put the fly anywhere he wanted without any difficulty at all.

"Try the fish," I encouraged.

The first cast was right on target. It was like something out of the text book. There was a clean head and tail rise. Bill reacted with a well-timed strike.

"That is cool," he said as he played the fish to exhaustion. "That is really cool."