Leaders, tippet, monofilament, knotted, furled, braided, twined - The connection from the fly line to the fly - Keywords - The words we use - Words, tags, taxonomy - Fly fishing tag cloud - Global FlyFisher

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Leaders
The connection from the fly line to the fly

How to fish with more than one fly

Teaming up: Having more than one fly on your leader actually makes pretty good sense in the very simple way that presenting more than one temptation to the fish increases the chance of a bite. But there are many other reasons.
Read about it here.

The only knot

Tying: This is definitely going to get me in trouble! But I guarantee you that if you learn this knot you will be able to get very far in almost all kinds of flyfishing. Use this for your daily knotting and use loops for the rest (backing to fly line, fly line to leader), and you will be able to make it through many, many fishing days.
See which one it is here.
Proceed to "Capt. Mel's Tube Knot" here

Capt. Mel's Tube Knot
More about "Fly fishing knots"

Fly fishing knots
Proceed to "LeaderCalc2007" here

LeaderCalc2007
Jump to "First setup of reel, backing, line and leader"

First setup
Find "Leaders&Tippets Q&A" on this page

Leaders&Tippets
Directly to "The Diawl Bach - Little Devil"

Little Devil
Click to see "Secrets of making & fishing strike indicators"

Strike Indicator Scientology
Click to see "Advanced Fly-Fishing Techniques by Lefty Kreh"

Advanced Kreh
Go to "Drag-Free Drift by Joseph A. Kissane"

Drag-Free Drift
See "Producing hand tied leaders" by clicking here

Production leaders
See "QwikCalc" by clicking here

QwikCalc
Read more on "On bite tippets for pike flies - Global FlyFisher"

On bite tippets for pike flies - Global FlyFisher
Videos with "Leaders - The connection from the fly line to the fly" - More videos
Capt. Mel's Tube Knot
See video in full resolution
After years of seeing knots that either were so bulky they had a hard time going through the guides or worse they failed causing the loss of a good fish, I found a way to jam the fly line core up against an ordinary nail knot. This knot is as strong as the fly line, and as you will see it's also very small. See our article about this knot.

  
 Go to Pike streamer
Pike streamer
This colorful fly is an almost neutral density pike pattern that fishes in, or just below the surface. It is excellent for summer pike fishing in shallow waters.
  
 Go to Fly fishing leaders and tippets
Fly fishing leaders and tippets
Leaders fall in several categories. These all serve the same purpose: transmitting the energy fra the fly line to the fly in a gentle, yet firm way. The different types each have their advantages and disadvantages, and selecting one is often a question of compromises.
Furled leaders DIY
The following description on how to make your own twined leaders was given to me by Henk Verhaar from Holland. Henks description fascinated me so much, that I made the first set of three leaders already the first night after having recieved the description.
  
 Go to Knots for the fly fisherman
Knots for the fly fisherman
The discussion of knots seems endless. We probably never will know exactly which knot is the best, and the ultimate knot has not yet been tied. We list the following knots in a knot table and show how to tie them one by one -- with a little comment attached.
  
 Go to Illustrated knot table
Illustrated knot table
A test in the print magazine Fly Fisherman showed the Trilene and the Orvis knot to be equally strong and on top of that said that they were able to maintain 100% of the line strength. I really have my doubt if that will hold for all types and thicknesses of line, but still it does prove that these could be the knots of choice for the concerned fly fisher.
  
 Go to Joining loops
Joining loops
The loop system has the advantage of being very flexible. You can easily join two sections of the fly rig, when you have loops on each section
  
 Go to Using the loop system
Using the loop system
When I first started fishing with a fly rod, I spent a lot of time tying compex knots to join the different part of the rig. I wish someone had told me about loops when I started, because they would have saved me a lot af work.
Twined or furled leaders
Great leaders made by the ancient method of ropemaking.