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Poly leader for dry fly

Moderator: Paul Arden

Hornbeam
Posts: 39
Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2013 6:12 pm
Answers: 0

Re: Poly leader for dry fly

#11

Post by Hornbeam »

Bendix wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 8:21 pm Hi All

I am in the process of preparing my tackle for the coming Mayfly season. My main rod is a 9ft 5wt, with a floating WF and a recently acquired floating DT that are both true to AFFTA standards. For leader I use 9 foot tapered nylon, which I lengthen with around 6-7 feet of tapered nylon. This has worked quite well over the years, but I must admit that my curiosity has been awakened recently, as I have been watching some YouTube videos from New Zealand, where some seemingly experienced and talented people are recommending that you use an 8-10 foot long floating poly leader, that you lengthen with around 6-8 feet of tapered nylon. They claim that this helps a lot in regards of turnover with large dry flies (such as the Mayflies that I use).

So my question is, has anyone here tried using floating poly leaders for dry flies, and if so, what did you think of it?

Or would I be better off just using the leaders I have used so far, and am familiar with?

The waters I fish are smallish Danish streams, with both open spaces, and areas with lots of trees, where casting space is relatively limited.

/Bendix
What do you mean by "lengthen with 6-7 feet of tapered nylon"? Unless it's tapered leader material you're using to do that, the only way of tapering a leader/tippet is by knotting together successively narrower gauges of monofilamment. Or do you really mean lengthen with 6-7 feet of level tippet?
Bendix
Posts: 181
Joined: Fri Jan 15, 2021 12:23 pm
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Location: Denmark

Re: Poly leader for dry fly

#12

Post by Bendix »

Hi Hornbeam

What I mean is, that I lengthen the 9ft tapered leader, by knotting together tippet material of successively thinner diameter, until it’s 6-7ft long, ending in 0,18mm.

Hope that answers your question.

And to wrap up this discussion, I can say, that I recently watched a movie on YouTube, made by one of the guys that I’ve seen using the polyleaders I asked about, where he explained how and why he uses them. And I now know, that it is pointless to use them for my dry fly fishing. So during the mayfly season that just ended here in Denmark, I simply used the leader and tippet combination that I’m used to using, and they worked just fine.

/Bendix
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Paul Arden
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Re: Poly leader for dry fly

#13

Post by Paul Arden »

Thanks Bendix. To unwrap it again do you have a link to the video please? :)

Cheers, Paul
It's an exploration; bring a flyrod.

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Bendix
Posts: 181
Joined: Fri Jan 15, 2021 12:23 pm
Answers: 0
Location: Denmark

Re: Poly leader for dry fly

#14

Post by Bendix »

Hi Paul

Sorry, I can’t do that…

Firstly, I just searched YouTube, and I couldn’t immediately find the video…

And secondly, with my poor technical abilities on a computer, I couldn’t make a link to a video, even if my life depended on it…

With apologies,

Bendix
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