All About Knotless Leaders and Line/Leader Connections, with Josh Jenkins

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Tom: Hi, and welcome to the "Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast." I'm so glad you're here. And my guest today is the great Josh Jenkins. Josh is head of research and development and product development at [00:00:30.547] Scientific Anglers, who makes all Orvis lines and lots and lots and lots of other lines and other accessories for fly fishing.
And we originally were going to talk about knotless leaders, how they're made, how to modify them, which ones you should choose, and it kind of morphed from there. We got to talking about line-to-leader connections and a [00:01:00.279] great new way that I knew nothing about for actually repairing fly lines, which I didn't think he could do. But Josh has found a new product that you can actually...if you get a cut in a fly line, you can actually repair it. So lots of cool stuff in the podcast. If you're interested in leaders and fly lines, and I'm sure you are because I get lots of questions about those things, then I think you'll learn quite a bit in this podcast. [00:01:30.367]
And before we do the fly box, where you ask me questions and I try to answer them, or you share tips, I wanted to tell you about some places you might want to go to on your fishing trip, either this fall, or winter, or next season. The first one is an outfitter, The Reel Baja. And this is a place I have always wanted to go to. I've never fished Baja, and I've heard some wonderful things about Baja. I love saltwater fishing, and I just [00:02:00.214] haven't gotten there yet. There's lots of places in the world to fish and so little time.
But they fish, Reel Baja fishes the entire Cape of Baja. So you know you're going to be fishing in the right place at the right time. And they target roosterfish, Dorado, tunas, snapper, jack crevalle, and even marlin and sailfish, as well as other species. There's lots and lots of saltwater species that can be caught on the [00:02:30.098] Baja Peninsula. They provide all the equipment that you need, or you can bring your own. And they offer beach fishing. They offer inshore fishing, shallow water fishing, and offshore fishing. So Reel Baja can really customize your trip to fit your own timeline and your expectations, what you want to chase, and what you want to catch.
Our Orvis indoors guide this week is Thomas Schneider at Sunrise [00:03:00.729] Anglers. And Thomas fishes the Poudre, the Big Thompson, Rocky Mountain National Park, the St. Vrain, John Gierach's favorite stream, Boulder Creek, Clear Creek, and, of course, the South Platte drainage. They can do urban floats. They can do high mountain reservoirs or multi-day backcountry expeditions.
So Colorado is a difficult place to navigate because it's really tough to tell [00:03:30.337] where the public land is and where the private waters are, because it's not required that you post your land if it's private. So they specialize in public waters, but they've done lots and lots of exploring and checked out all the great public waters. And they prefer that, but they do have also private water that they can take you to. And this is not [00:04:00.061] private water with pellet-fed pigs. This is private water with quality fishing. And Sunrise is permitted to guide more miles of public water than any other guide service in Colorado. So if you're in the Colorado area, either you live there or you're there on vacation, I would look up Sunrise Anglers for a great fishing trip.
Now, our lodge this week is a place that [00:04:30.499] I have fished for over 50 years, but I've never stayed at the lodge. That's because our lodge this week is the Hill Farm Inn, which is located on the Batten Kill near Orvis headquarters, about halfway between our corporate headquarters and our retail store in Sunderland, Vermont. And it's a beautiful place, and it's located on one of my favorite stretches of the Batten Kill. It's on the upper Batten Kill, which is [00:05:00.592] some slower water and a little more intimate water than the lower Batten Kill, but it's a historic 235-year-old dairy farm, which was renovated in 2015. It's got 11 bedrooms with en suite bath and also private cottages.
Now, they have a restaurant on the property with incredible farm-to-table fare, and I have eaten in this restaurant, and I really like it. [00:05:30.509] So again, it's right on the Batten Kill. It's very close to the Orvis Retail Store. It's about a, I don't know, 10-minute drive from the Orvis Retail Store and the American Museum of Fly Fishing. And the guiding at Hill Farm Inn is provided by Brew Moscarello and Trout Unlimited, one of our great local guide services here. So if you're in there, if you want to fish Vermont, if you're in the Southern Vermont area and you want a [00:06:00.516] great place to stay in a beautiful historic lodge with views of Mount Equinox, then I highly recommend the Hill Farm.
Now, we can do the fly box. The fly box is where you ask me questions or you share a tip, and I either try to answer your questions or read your tip on the air if I think that your tip would be valuable to [00:06:30.492] other listeners. And you can ask me a question or forward a tip at an email, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. I read them all. I listen to them all. I don't answer them all, but I love getting your questions. It enables me to tailor both the fly box and my interviews to things that you want to learn about. So it really [00:07:00.345] helps. And I think it makes this podcast better because I get a better sense of who you are. We're having a conversation instead of me and my guest lecturing to you.
The first question is an email from Doug from Minnesota. "I've been listening to your podcast now for a few months, and I'm enjoying it. I'm 63 and new to fly fishing since 2021, and try to absorb as much as I can from each episode. [00:07:30.490] My current setup is an Orvis Encounter 5-weight and a big box store 8-weight combo. I'm planning a winter trip to Belize to try fly fishing in saltwater, and the guides recommend bringing an 8-weight for bonefish, a 9-weight for permit, and a 10-weight for tarpon. We will fish on our own for a few days in addition to fishing with guides.
Is there a single weight rod you'd recommend that could perform for all three? Should I get additional reel spools and maybe overline the rod? [00:08:00.443] Does that affect casting performance? Any other beginner saltwater recommendations?"
So Doug, first of all, you can probably do it all with a 9-weight. Here's the issue with using a 9-weight. On the light end, most bonefish in Belize are not really big, and you might be a little bit overgunned with a 9-weight, but you can certainly catch those bonefish with the 9-weight. [00:08:30.242] And just maybe use a little bit longer leader because the 9-weight lands a little harder on the water, but it'd be fine for catching bonefish. And, of course, it's perfect for permit.
And as long as you don't run into some really big tarpon, if you're fishing for the average small baby tarpon in the mangroves, and you may encounter snook there as well, the 9-weight will work okay. So I think your best overall rod would be a 9-weight, and you could [00:09:00.530] take that less expensive 8-weight with you for bonefish if you want. If you really want to concentrate on tarpon, then I would invest in a 10-weight, but it doesn't sound like you can afford all three, and that's understandable.
As far as beginner saltwater recommendations, the most important thing is to practice your casting and practice with your ability to [00:09:30.446] pick up a 40-foot cast, change direction, and deliver that with a minimum of false cast and accuracy. That's something we don't always need to do in trout fishing because trout usually don't move in a river. But in saltwater, the fish are always going to be moving, sometimes moving fairly quickly, and the most disconcerting thing to a beginning freshwater angler, trout angler, is the ability to [00:10:00.377] make those casts quickly.
And just practice. There's nothing tricky about it. Practice your basic overhead cast. Don't even worry about double hauling if you don't know how to do it. If you can make a 40-foot cast accurately and quickly, you're going to be able to handle most situations you find in Belize.
Gene: Hi Tom, this is Gene from San Francisco. I appreciate your contributions to the sport [00:10:30.155] and your sharing of your knowledge. I'm primarily a West Coast steelheader, and I'd like to try some steely tactics on trout in the McLeod River. So my first question, can you skate flies for trout, and if so, any tips?
And then my next question relates to streamer fishing. If I'm fishing a 3 to 10-foot deep run with a weighted poly leader, should I strip [00:11:00.383] or just swing the fly? And if I'm stripping, should I let the fly sink before retrieving? And as it relates to that run, should I only fish the head and tail out and not the middle part? These are my questions. And I enjoyed meeting you at the Western Rivers Conservancy event in San Francisco a couple of years ago. Please try to make it to the Bay Area again, and we provide a warm [00:11:30.562] welcome at the Golden Gate Angling & Casting Club. Thanks. Gene.
Tom: Well, Gene, you can certainly skate flies for trout, and people do it. It's not always productive, but it's not always productive for steelhead either. Generally, the best flies for skating are caddis flies like elk hair caddis, something that floats fairly high. And what you want to do is grease your leader, just put some line dressing [00:12:00.456] or fly dressing on your leader so that it floats. Generally works better in smoother water.
And what you want to do is skate the fly a little bit by keeping your rod really high and then dropping the rod and letting the fly dead drift a bit, and then maybe skating it a few feet more and then dropping the rod and letting it dead drift. That's usually the most effective for trout, and a trout strike to a skated fly can be pretty violent, but it doesn't work [00:12:30.671] all the time. Works better when there's caddis flies on the water.
Now, regarding your streamer fishing for trout, you know, you can do both. And if you want to swing a fly with a streamer just the exact same way as you do for steelhead, that'll work. But also stripping the fly will work. And it really depends on the type of water you're fishing and what the trout are interested in that [00:13:00.236] particular day. They can switch from day to day, and you never know what's going to work. Even dead drifting a streamer sometimes will work.
So you want to swing in the same kind of water you'd swing for steelhead. If you see water like that and you think it might hold some trout, then you can swing it. And if you get into more pocket water and, you know, water with conflicting currents where it's tougher to swing a fly, then you can strip your streamer and you can strip it [00:13:30.485] upstream, downstream, just about any angle. Really depends on the exact situation, and again, the mood of the fish. Sometimes they respond to very fast strips, sometimes a slow strip, sometimes an erratic strip, but it's going to vary. So I would just encourage you to experiment.
And the heads and the tail outs, particularly with a streamer and a skating fly, are usually the most [00:14:00.322] common place to find trout, but you'll also find them in the middle of a pool. And if you're in the middle of a pool where the water is a little slower, then you probably want to strip your streamer fly. And thank you very much for the invite to the club. Next time I'm out there, I will take you up on that offer.
Let's do another email. This one's from Jonathan from Erie, Pennsylvania. [00:14:30.387] "I would like to say thank you for answering my question on the podcast about greasing a leader, but I would like to point something out to you that I feel many listeners probably feel similarly about with regards to questions we ask you. And I know you say you like the taking-you-to-task emails, and by no means am I doing that, but I do feel you missed the point of some of the questions we ask. Maybe you don't, and for that, I apologize, but I'll type this anyway with hopes that I [00:15:00.493] don't get put on a block list for people who email the podcast." Don't worry, Jonathan, you won't get blocked.
"I asked a question about saltwater and stripers in regard to their migration patterns, where they might hold in certain water and structure elements, for which you did not answer, based on the internet providing more in-depth knowledge, to which I agree. The internet gives ample amounts of knowledge and a plethora of amazing sites, but sadly, it gives an even greater amount of useless garbage that is either [00:15:30.434] false or inaccurate.
So here's my point. When we ask a question, and I assume we, as a collective group, about certain fishing types, or fish, or whatever the topic may be, we just want your opinion. We actually love hearing your opinion on all these topics, but I think you'd dismiss them, thinking all we want is an answer to find a fishing spot.
In this week's podcast, you answered a question about removing a buried hook, to which has been answered hundreds of times, and another about [00:16:00.410] insoles and waders, which would really need a podiatrist, potentially. Recently, I found myself really drawn to saltwater fly fishing, and I think the podcast could use a few more of them. I appreciate your time a ton, and I appreciate your opinion. I think we all are just curious what your thoughts are. That's why we take the time to email or call you. Hope this doesn't make you mad."
Well, Jonathan, that absolutely does not make me mad, and thank you for [00:16:30.398] kind of taking me to task, but letting me know that you guys do want to hear your opinion. And, you know, I'm kind of a modest person, I think, and I think that you will find that most fly fishers who have been at it a long time are pretty modest, because we've learned that there's so much that we don't know that...
Anybody that's [00:17:00.319] arrogant about their fly fishing knowledge just hasn't been around long enough, because the minute you think you got it all figured out, you learn something new, or you learn you're totally wrong. So I will try to give you... I promise I will try to give you my opinion more often, and you should all know that anything you get on this podcast is just my opinion, and fly fishing is such a subjective thing that all you're getting is one person's opinion. So [00:17:30.548] if you're listening to my podcast, you're going to get my opinion, whether you like it or not. So thank you, Jonathan.
Here's an email from Derek from Northeast Florida. "I had a question about a rod I rented from a trout park a few years back. Best I can remember, it was an Orvis Power Matrix 4-weight, 8 or 8.5 inches. Also, to the best of my memory, it was a white rod, unlike the green ones I keep seeing on eBay. I still think about [00:18:00.506] this rod from time to time, as I enjoyed fishing it so much.
I'd like to know about your personal experiences with the Power Matrix line of rods. In what situations or presentations they were most commonly used for, or maybe they were just good all-rounders, as well as which rod out of the current Orvis lineup do you think would be a close match to?"
Well, Derek, I don't think the Power Matrix was ever made in white unless [00:18:30.516] it was one of the special white-painted rods that we often use for making casting videos. It was always green, as far as I can remember. But I looked it up, and that rod came out in 1993, and it was an 8-foot 4-inch for a 4-weight. So you were close.
And at the time, it was the top-of-the-line Orvis rod, and it was used [00:19:00.799] for everything, depending on the model, of course. But it was kind of an all-round general best we could make at the time rod. Now, rods have improved a lot since then. Rods have gotten...they've gotten lighter, they've gotten stronger, they've gotten more accurate, and they've actually gotten just easier to cast over the years. But I think that the closest rod in the current [00:19:30.169] Orvis lineup to that old Power Matrix would be the Clearwater. And this is a less expensive Orvis rod, but that would be the closest thing to the casting experience you had with that Power Matrix rod.
John: Hey, Tom, I'm listening to one of your podcasts. I'm always fascinated with the lingo of fly fishermen. You mentioned the term gin-clear. Do you have any knowledge of the origin of that saying? I could [00:20:00.266] look it up, but I want to know firsthand from someone who may know the real story. Thanks.
Tom: So John, I don't know. I don't know about the term gin-clear or where it came from, but it's almost a cliche these days, and I know a lot of writers try to avoid using that term. And I suspect that what it came from was back in maybe the '20s or the '30s or the '40s, [00:20:30.659] and maybe from the Catskill area. In those days, there was a lot of drinking involved with fly fishing. In fact, I think the drinking was as important as the fly fishing in those days, people getting away from the city and getting away from their spouses and going fishing and ending up spending most of the evening drinking. And so they probably had gin on their minds, and somehow, [00:21:00.971] because gin is pretty clear, that became a term for clear water. But again, it's kind of a cliche, and we try to avoid using it these days just because it's been overused.
Here's an email from Reagan. "I feel like 20 years ago or more, there used to be a lot more rod lengths available, like 8-foot 3-inch, 8-foot 9-inch, 9-foot 3-inch, and 9-foot 6-inch. Maybe I'm not paying as much attention as I used to, but it seems like you see most rods under [00:21:30.284] 9 foot to be 4-weight or less, with the occasional eight-and-a-half 6-weight. What happened? Were these not selling? Was it not economical to have that many lengths in a line? Were they replaced by the new Euro rods?"
So Reagan, in the early days of graphite, they really tried to mimic the lengths and line sizes that were popular in bamboo, and there were a lot of 7.5-foot [00:22:00.449] 6-weights and 8-foot 7-weights and even 6-foot 5-weights. There were shorter rods because it was really tough to make a bamboo rod that long, and they were heavy. The longer you got, they got really heavy.
So I think that we've gone to longer lengths, and honestly, if you're going to be fishing a 5-weight, you probably want that [00:22:30.318] longer length for the most part because you're going to be fishing bigger dries, maybe streamers, nymphs with indicators, and a 9-foot rod or even longer is going to be a lot more efficient and fun casting tool than a shorter one.
Now, there is an exception to that. The new 7-foot-9-inch Far and Fine for a 5-weight superfine rod is a shorter 5-weight, but I just don't think most people want a really short rod [00:23:00.528] for a heavy line. Most of the time, when you're fishing short rods, you're fishing small streams. The fish are small, and you really don't want a 5 or a 6-weight rod because small fish might not even bend the rod that much. So little delicate rods, I think, are more fun in small streams.
But there are a lot of odd-length or not foot or half-foot sizes these days. There's [00:23:30.396] the 9-foot 5-inch 5-weight Helios, and there's also some rods coming out that I can't tell you much about that are going to be odder lengths, non-standard lengths, but I can't tell you about them.
Actually, I can tell you about one. Don't tell anybody I told you this because it's probably like 2 or 3 days before the rod is launched, [00:24:00.258] but there's going to be a special limited edition Helios 9-foot 5-inch for 4-weight. Why 9-foot 5-inch? Well, because having a rod a little bit longer than 9 foot sometimes makes it a little easier to make longer casts and to manipulate the line on the water, and when you go to 10 feet, you lose a little bit of accuracy. So 9-foot 5-inch for a 4-weight [00:24:30.636] is a nice rod. I've actually been fishing this rod for about a year now, and I love it. It's coming out in a limited edition. There will only be 500 of them made, and it's got some special cosmetics on it that you will see probably later this week.
Here's an email from Jacob from Denver. "I recently inherited a treasure trove of vintage fly fishing gear, '80s [00:25:00.615] and '90s rods, reels, and tackle from my grandfather, who passed away earlier this year. He was an avid fly fisherman, and I feel very thankful that he introduced me to the sport at a young age. I will especially miss our annual trip to Craig, Montana, to fish with pro outfitters. We were extremely lucky to get one last trip together this May. Of course, he caught the largest fish of the trip.
On to the question. Among the inherited gear are almost a dozen [00:25:30.319] unopened fly lines, mostly Scientific Angler brand. The lines range from 5 to 10-weight, some floating and some sink tip. Most of the reels I inherited are also spooled up with SA lines that seem to be in good condition. Do I run the risk of these older lines breaking if I fish them? What are the primary differences I would notice between these older lines and a new line? Are the older tapers vastly different from what is available today? What other aspects of fly line has changed since these [00:26:00.349] were made?
Lastly, should I replace the backing on the reels that are already spooled up? Thanks for all you do for the fly fishing community. P.S., the price tags were still on some of the fly line boxes. I wish SA lines were still $35."
Well, Jacob, those lines should be fine as long as they weren't stored in a really hot area, as you'll find out when I talk to Josh a little bit later. But [00:26:30.440] they should be fine. They won't break, for sure. What you'll see, as compared to the modern lines, is they probably won't float quite as well. But we used those lines for years, and we were perfectly happy with them. They won't float quite as high, and they may not shoot quite as good as a modern line. But they're certainly going to be usable lines.
And [00:27:00.911] the sinking lines are probably going to be fine as well, or the sink tip lines. Regarding the backing, I would just pull the fly line off the reel and take a look at the backing. As long as there's no rot or any mold or visible damage to the backing, that should be fine as well. So I think that those lines and those reels are going to be just fine. Not going to be quite as nice as the modern lines, [00:27:30.554] but they'll be in good shape and they're definitely fishable.
Now, as far as the tapers are concerned, you're going to find that those lines were probably true to line size. In other words, they would fall within the specs for how many grains a fly line should weigh. These days, there are a lot of lines that are overweighted. Some are a half size heavier, some are a full size heavier. I don't know why they [00:28:00.391] do that, because you should just call them the next line size up. But it's mainly because some of the rods out there have gotten awfully stiff, and you need an over-weighted line to bring out the action of them.
And these days, some of the lines are a lot more front-weighted, heavier toward the tip, a little bit steeper-tapered because [00:28:30.408] we fish streamers a lot more these days. And we fish nymphs with indicators a lot more these days, and with split shot, so the front-weighted lines help a little bit. But as far as standard fishing, especially dry fly fishing and nymph fishing without a big indicator on them, those tapers are going to work just fine for you.
Here's an email from Charlie. "Thank you for everything you do for the fly fishing [00:29:00.323] industry. I hope to meet you someday at one of the winter fly fishing shows. My question is that I often hear about a couple techniques called skating a fly or swinging a fly. I was wondering if these are the same or different techniques in fly fishing. I would like a simple explanation on how to perform these techniques and when to use them. Are these techniques primarily used in dry fly fishing or wet fly fishing? After understanding these a little better, it may be something that can make me become a [00:29:30.703] better angler in certain situations."
Well, Charlie, in my opinion, the way I understand it and the way I talk about it is that skating a fly is dragging a fly across the surface that is either a floating fly, like a dry fly, or a damp fly, so a fly that's kind of in and out of the surface film. [00:30:00.406] Then, swinging a fly would be something that you are also dragging across the current on a tight line, but that would be a subsurface fly. So that's the way I understand. It's really, really very similar techniques, except one's used for a fly that's close to the surface or on the surface, and the other one is used for a fly that's under the surface.
Now, as far as swinging a fly, [00:30:30.417] basically, you cast across or maybe 45 degrees downstream, depending on the current speed, and you often make a little bit of an upstream mend, and then you just let the fly swing on a tight line. That's for the swinging with a wet fly, and you just let it swing in the current, and as it comes across, often right at the end of the swing, fish will take the fly.
Now, skating a fly, you can do the same thing with a dry fly, but I like [00:31:00.564] to do it a little differently. First of all, I put a paste or fly dressing on my leader so that it floats, and then I put a lot of paste or whatever dry fly treatment I'm using on the fly itself, and I cast generally a little bit downstream, just a little bit of an angle downstream. I raise my rod tip, and I strip [00:31:30.372] in line and wiggle the rod tip at the same time so that the fly kind of hops and dances across the water. Then I quickly drop my rod and let that fly dead drift a little bit, and then I raise it up again and skitter it a few more times across the surface. Sometimes this works, as I said previously, especially during a caddis hatch, but you can skate a fly anyway. It's basically using controlled drag [00:32:00.383] on a fly.
So I hope those explanations help, but the easiest way for you to learn about this is to go out and try it. Just get a dry fly, take a wet fly, take a dry fly. You can use the same leader, fish the wet fly swinging for a while, see how it performs, and then try to skate that dry fly and see how it performs. Generally, these are best done in smooth, uniform-flow water as [00:32:30.647] opposed to water that has a lot of conflicting currents. So it doesn't work as well in pocket water. It's really tough to do these in pocket water unless you're using really short casts.
And I also should say what I mean by pocket water. Pocket water is water that is like a riffle but with big rocks, so there's a lot of foam, there's a lot of tumbling water, usually a lot of rocks in the water, and all kinds of [00:33:00.160] different conflicting currents going all kinds of directions.
Here's a question from Carol from Colorado. "Hi, Tom, I hope your summer has been going well and you've been on some great fishing trips. I dream of going on a trip that you host, and can't imagine how much my fly fishing skills and knowledge would expand. It's great that you're doing these. I hope you can go on more to share what you learn or relearn on the podcast.
Regarding the tie-offs, I find them on YouTube after the fact, but being live [00:33:30.135] is a bit more fun. Are they still on Mondays monthly? How are they advertised so I can plan for them? I love how there are so many techniques shared. For instance, how you approach the water walker was so different than I watched a video of Cheech tying it, and there was yet another way."
So Carol, first of all, thank you, and I will continue to host fishing trips as long as they let me, and I do learn a lot that I can share on the podcast on those hosting [00:34:00.043] trips, and I really enjoy them. So thank you, and I hope to see you on one of those trips.
Regarding the tie-offs, and for those of you who aren't aware of it, once a month or thereabouts, Tim Flagler and Cheech from Fly Fish Food and I go online live, and we each tie the same fly. Usually, we tie them in different ways, and then at the end, on the live [00:34:30.550] version, people get to vote for who they think tied the best fly, so it's a lot of fun, and there's a lot of joking going on.
And we used to try to do it monthly, and we used to try to do it to a regular schedule, but unfortunately, Cheech is busy running a fly shop. I travel a fair amount, and Tim Flagler travels even more. So we try to get together once a month, and it's often difficult to get all three of us on one day [00:35:00.578] of the week. It's not always Monday anymore, and it's not always monthly, and the best way is to watch the Orvis, or stay in touch with either the Orvis Facebook page or the Orvis YouTube channel, and when we announce those, it's usually a week or so before we do them. They'll appear there, and sometimes we go on Instagram too and let you know, but it is erratic, [00:35:30.222] and I apologize. I wish we could stick to a better schedule, but it's just due to the three of us trying to get our schedules coordinated.
Here's an email from Tom from Colorado. "Hey, Tom, I have a wader question for the podcast. I know you've touched on various aspects of waders, but hoping you can help confirm to make me feel better. This is my first season fly fishing, and although I have wet-waded and very much prefer it over wearing waders, I've decided to buy some [00:36:00.457] good waders so that I can do some early mid-fall fly fishing in the occasional winter half-day or so if I can weather the Colorado cold as well as get out early in the season next year.
As I said, I do not like to wear waders and try not to if I can get away with it, so I opted for the Orvis Ultralight Waders, hoping they'd be more minimal. I actually love them, but worried that they won't last long because they are ultralight. My goal is to just stay dry and then [00:36:30.335] layer underneath for the warmth.
My question. Did I sacrifice the ability to stay just as dry as well as the ability for them to last just as long and durability over the more expensive models because they are ultralight? My understanding is they will keep me just as dry, however, they just don't have the bells and whistles as more expensive waders do, like hand warmer pockets, storage, etc., to keep the weight down, as well as the external Cordura layer for going through brush. My goal [00:37:00.291] is, number one, stay dry, and I will layer up underneath for the warmth. This all assumes I take care of them, of course. Thanks, Tom. Your podcasts and education have been most valuable to me."
Well, Tom, I love the ultralight waders, too, and I actually wear them for most of the season. Under normal use, if you're not crashing through brush and kneeling down a lot and really sliding down rocky banks and things like that, they're going to last just as long as a [00:37:30.445] heavier pair of pro waders. And I'm not so sure how much warmer the pro waders are. They're a little bit thicker, and they might be a little warmer, but the pro waders and the heavier-duty waders are designed for people who really spend a lot of time busting brush and really abuse their waders like a guide would getting in and out of a drift boat.
I go to Chile every year in December, when [00:38:00.343] it's pretty mild but can be very, very cool, and I always just take the ultralight waders with me. I wear them all season long, and as you said, I just layer underneath them if it's cold. And I like traveling with them because they're light and they pack down. And I've worn them for two years, and they've held up just fine. I've worn them all season long here in the Northern Hemisphere, and I've worn them down in South [00:38:30.267] America, and they work just fine. So I wouldn't worry at all about it. As long as you're not really putting some really hard use to those waders, they're going to last as long as any other wader.
Here's an email from Carl from Utah. "What is a proper way to store fly lines when you're not going to use it for an extended period of time? Back in the day, I remember being told I should take the line off the reel and store it in loose loops. I'll admit that I haven't been an ardent practitioner of this practice. I haven't [00:39:00.500] noticed any damage to my fly lines that have been kept on this spool for an extended time. The line has a memory off the spool, but it works out very quickly with a couple of casts. With new lines costing 120 bucks, I want to keep them in good shape. Thanks for all the work you've done to promote the sport of fly fishing."
Yeah, Carl, I don't see any reason that you need to store your fly lines in loose coils unless you worry about memory, but as you said, the memory comes out of the lines very quickly, and you can even [00:39:30.439] stretch the line once you take it off the spool if it's been lying on there for a while. But it's not going to damage the lines at all. I keep all my lines for years stored on the spools and the reels, and I've never had a problem. So I don't think you need to worry about it at all, and I wouldn't go the extra effort to take them off the reel and lay them in loose coils. It's going to be a pain in the butt. You're going to [00:40:00.685] have lines all over the place, and it's not going to help the lines at all. So just keep them on reels, and you'll be fine.
Eric: Hi, Tom. This is Eric Taylor from Alameda, California, and I'm calling with both a little tip, and I have a question. My tip is just that over the last couple of years, I've heard people ask about traveling with fly fishing gear. I just wanted to offer this, that I travel both internationally and domestically, [00:40:30.301] and I'm always a little bit paranoid about my stuff. And one thing I would just suggest to people, and I've never had any problem, knock on wood, about TSA agents or taking stuff on planes, but I always sort of don't put all my eggs in one basket, as it were.
So I'll put fly boxes and stinky underwear inside boots and stuff in my checked luggage. I'll also take on fly boxes. I'll put two rods with me [00:41:00.125] on the plane, but also, like, a backup rod, you know, and checked in. So in other words, I scatter it to kind of cover my bases.
All right. Question. So for a few bodies of water that won't be named, lakes that I fish a lot, I'm looking for a certain line. The line I use is effective, but I'm wondering, why is there not available on the market that I can find anyway, a clear [00:41:30.425] sinking line that is greater than an intermediate line? Like, why can't I find, you know, Type 4, 5, or 6 clear line? I would love, if anyone's listening here from any of the fly line makers, a clear Type 6 sink line with an intermediate running line and about a, you know, 30-plus shooting head.
So I'm just wondering why that's not on the market. Is it feasible? What do you think about that? I mean, I love all my [00:42:00.465] intermediate clear lines. They're very effective, but there are also some bodies of water where I get down deeper and want that. You know, I would love a clear line, especially on sunny days. All right. Thanks. Love the podcast. Love you. And jealous of all your traveling adventures. Bye-bye.
Tom: So Eric, thanks. That's a great tip. And it would be awful to get to a place and not have all your tackle. So at least if you do it that way, you're going to have some of your tackle when you [00:42:30.502] arrive at your destination. Regarding a clear sinking line that's going to sink faster than intermediate, there's a technical problem there. And that is that to make sinking lines, they incorporate a tungsten powder into the coating of the lines. And there is no such thing as clear tungsten, as far as I know.
So with current technology, Eric, it's going to be impossible [00:43:00.369] to create a clear, fast-sinking line. Now, that doesn't mean that they won't figure out a way to do it in the future. But right now, with the way we make sinking lines now, it's just not possible.
One of the things you could do with your sinking lines, if you're worried about stealth, is to just use a longer leader. You know, maybe put a longer butt section on your leader. It's not going to sink your fly quite as well, but with a full sinking line, you can still use a long [00:43:30.249] leader and just wait for everything to sink to the bottom. Maybe a full sinking line, a longer leader, say 9 or even 12 feet, and then a fly with a little bit of weight on it. That'll get you down there and will keep that sinking line farther away from the fish. Best we can do right now.
All right. That is the fly box for this week. Let's go talk to Josh about leaders and lines. My guest today [00:44:00.399] is Josh Jenkins from Scientific Anglers. And Josh is kind of a combination of the mad scientist and the head honcho in the R&D department. What's your official title there, Josh?
Josh: R&D manager.
Tom: R&D manager. That doesn't really say what you are, but we're not big on titles [00:44:30.274] at Orvis and SA anyway.
Josh: That's true. Yeah. I think it's close enough. It's fairly descriptive for what I needed to do.
Tom: Yeah, but you're the guy who works on fly line coatings and fly line tapers and the new clear line, and not fly boxes, but you've done that line winder. What do you call that line winder that's really cool?
Josh: Yeah, the regulator spool.
Tom: The regulator [00:45:00.631] spool. Yeah, I love that.
Josh: Line management device.
Tom: Yeah. Anyway, so we're going to talk about leaders today because I get tons and tons and tons of questions about leaders. And leaders mystify people. And personally, I think that the leader is the most important part of your tackle, especially in trout fishing and in a lot of other fishing as well. You know, anything where presentation is critical, it's the connection between your line and your fly. [00:45:30.329] And it can make a big difference in how the cast looks, how the fly is presented, whether you break off or not.
So we're going to talk about knotless leaders today, which is what most people use, knotless tapered nylon and fluorocarbon leaders. I think we'll maybe stick to nylon because it's a similar process. But I thought we'd first talk about how leaders are made. You and I [00:46:00.924] have both been inside these factories in Japan where our leaders are made, and tell people exactly how they're made, how they're put together. And then we'll talk about how they're designed and developed.
Josh: Sure. Yeah. So we went over a bit of the process in the last podcast I did with you. And it's largely the same. As far as I understand, it's the same equipment, even. So essentially, there's this line, this piece of machinery. [00:46:30.653] It's a bunch of pieces of machinery put together in this line, essentially. And I want to say, if my memory serves me correct, it was something like probably 60 or 70 feet long. Maybe you'll remember more accurately than I do, Tom, but the line that produces leader and tippet is very, very long.
Tom: Yeah, it's long.
Josh: And it has a bunch of different components to it. And the first component is the extruder and what they call a spinneret head. So it takes the raw material. It melts it into a liquid form. And then it pushes out [00:47:00.774] a small die or a bunch of holes in this die, and then it cools it down.
And then after that, it's a bunch of subsequent processes of essentially stretching the monofilament between an oven. So you're heating it and stretching it. And what you're trying to do is get all of the molecules of the monofilament to align along the length of the monofilament. And this is the same for fluorocarbon or nylon.
But when you go to the leader side, you add [00:47:30.521] one extra step of complexity in that. Not only are you trying to build strength by stretching and aligning all these molecules, now you also have to build in some component where you're tapering this thing. So monofilament is relatively easy to make because the diameter is the same along the whole length. I think leaders are one step more complex because of the taper.
And to be honest, I'm not exactly sure where in the process the taper comes from. It could be one of two places. It could be that as they're [00:48:00.531] extruding it, they're building in the taper. So for the tippet part, they're speeding it up, so it draws down to a smaller diameter. And then for the butt section, they're slowing it down. So it's a larger diameter, or the taper could also be set in the stretching process.
My gut tells me it's probably more on the extrusion side, with maybe a little fine-tuning on the stretching. But regardless, somewhere a taper gets put into this thing, and then it also has to go through that same stretching and heating [00:48:30.138] process to build strength in the leader.
Tom: And they come to us on a long, continuous piece, right? So it gets thick, and then it gets thin and goes into the tippet, and then it goes into the tippet of the next piece and back to the butt, and so on, over and over and over again.
Josh: Correct, yeah. And they're mirrored, like you said. So it'll be essentially two leaders sort of back-to-back. So the tippet sections will be touching, and then on the next set, the butt sections will be touching. [00:49:00.349] So they don't have to taper up and down twice as many times, I guess.
Tom: Right, yeah. So that's how they're made. And the factories are kind of secret. Not many people get inside these factories. And they're mostly...ours are all made in Japan, right?
Josh: Correct, yeah. All leader and tippets sold under the SA and Orvis brand, I think with the exception of one product that's made in Portugal, is from [00:49:30.565] Japan.
Tom: What's made in Portugal?
Josh: The hard mono is, actually.
Tom: Oh, the hard... Orvis doesn't sell hard mono, but SA does.
Josh: No, SA does. I think I'm fairly certain it's Portugal, but don't quote me on it. I know it's the only leader and tippet product that we have in our lineup that isn't sourced from Japan.
Tom: Uh-huh, okay. And so you specify a taper to the manufacturer. And [00:50:00.333] let's talk about the overall philosophy of the knotless leader taper.
Josh: Sure. Yeah, I mean, the nice thing is it follows the exact same physics principles as a fly line. So, you know, the same concept of how you taper a fly line, the diameter that a taper starts at, and the diameter that it ends at, and how that affects how aggressive a fly line turns over, that exactly correlates [00:50:30.544] to a leader. And so generally, a leader is only comprised of three sections because they're so short, and I think the tapering is complex enough they can't really do much more than that.
But you have a butt section that's the large diameter of the leader. You have a taper section where it goes from that large butt diameter down to the tippet section. And then on the very terminal end, the end that you attach your fly to or, you know, attach extra tippet to, is what we call the tippet end.
So you have three components, and we can specify the [00:51:00.458] diameter of the butt and the tip, and then we can specify the length of all three of those components. So I can say I want the butt to be this diameter and this length, I want the tippet section to be this length and this diameter, and then I want the taper section in between to be, you know, x inches long, and it'll basically made up those two diameters.
Tom: And the taper that goes from the butt section is kind of a straight taper, right? So whatever length you specify for the taper, it's going to go [00:51:30.378] from the butt section to the tippet section over a certain length.
Josh: Correct. It is, yeah. And I think we may be able to get them to do, you know, some sort of different tapering scheme, but in my opinion, generally, the difference in diameter between the tippet and the butt isn't large enough, and the taper section isn't long enough to really get any extra benefit out of doing like a weird, concave or convex taper. The straight taper seems to be just fine.
Tom: Yeah. And [00:52:00.147] let's take a 9-foot 4x leader, which is what a lot of people are using for trout fishing, right? How long is that level butt section?
Josh: So a good rule of thumb for a general-purpose taper is 60/20/20. So 60% of the total length is going to be butt section, 20% of the total length is taper, and then the same 20% length is tippet section. I can't really do that [00:52:30.651] math off the top of my head. If it was a 10-foot leader, it would essentially be 6 feet of butt, 2 feet of taper, and 2 feet of tippet.
Tom: Okay. And so straight out of the box, straight out of the package, your tippet and the 9-foot leader is going to be around 20 inches, right?
Josh: Around there, yep, 20 to 2 feet, 20 to 24 inches, something like that.
Tom: Yep. Now, there's a lot of modification that people can do [00:53:00.499] to that taper, right? I mean, there's things you can do to a leader. You can use them right out of the package, and they'll be fine. I don't think the tippets are long enough, personally, on standard leaders, and I've often said this. So let's talk about modifying the tippet, first of all.
Josh: Sure. Yeah, so there's a couple of [00:53:30.746] rules of thumb. I think you were probably alluding to one of them in that the more tippet you add, generally, the more finesse the turnover is going to be. So if you add tippet, it's going to give a more delicate delivery. So if you're fishing small flies or if you were intentionally trying to throw slack in there to try to get a drag-free drift, adding tippet is a good way to do that.
One thing I like to say in regards to that, if you're consistently adding tippet to [00:54:00.753] the end of the leader and you're not just fishing the tippet section on the leader, is generally I like to have the tippet side of the leader be a little bit larger than the tippet that I'm attaching. It just seems to give a better knot strength, in my experience. I'm not sure if you would say the same thing, Tom. But yes, you can add tippet to the end.
The main purpose there is to extend the life of the leader, I think, originally. But to your point, if you want to get a more delicate delivery, if you're trying to throw slack into a presentation [00:54:30.611] or you're fishing incredibly small flies, then you can accomplish the same thing with adding tippet.
Tom: Yeah, I mean, drag is caused by the fly line and the heavier part of the leader pulling on the fly, right? So the longer that lighter tippet is, the longer it's going to take for that mass to catch up to the fly. That's my philosophy. And [00:55:00.321] evenif you don't throw slack into the tippet, I think it's still going to give you some drag reduction. Well, you got to have a little slack in there. And then it'll get to a certain point where your tippet is going to ball up around your fly, right?
I mean, if you try to give yourself a 6-foot tippet in 6x, it's not going to present it the way you want. So you have to kind of [00:55:30.409] gauge the casting distance and how much wind there is and your own casting form as to how much extra tippet you can get away with, right?
Josh: Correct, yeah. And I would say probably the largest contributing factor, in my mind, is just your casting skill. A really good caster is going to be able to cast a very long leader and probably significantly long sections of tippet that they add to the end. If you're more a novice [00:56:00.059] angler, longer leaders and long tippet especially are going to just be more difficult.
Tom: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Now, you can also extend the butt section, right?
Josh: Yep. And so extending the butt section, I think, in my mind, would be primarily just to try to get a longer leader in general. So maybe you're trying to get more separation between your fly and the opaque portion on your fly line or something like that. You could also [00:56:30.238] maybe perhaps better adapt the butt diameter to the tip of your fly line. So if you bought a tapered leader, you pulled it out of the package and the butt diameter seemed too small to marry up to whatever fly line you're attaching it to, sometimes you can add a short piece of new butt section in there that's slightly larger than the butt diameter of the leader, and that'll help get a smoother transition from the fly line to the leader itself.
Tom: Yeah, and I don't know if this is the right way. The way I [00:57:00.076] do it, because I've been playing around with a leader for my 1-weight superfine rod in a 1-weight line, and what I did was I took a bunch of different diameters of super-strong nylon from...I think it was 23/1000 down to 17/1000, and I would fold the fly line at the tip, and I would pick the piece of monofilament [00:57:30.539] that folded in the same arc as the fly line. Is that...? Because you can't really measure the diameter with a micrometer or something, because the flexibility is different, right? So is that the best way to do it?
Josh: It's the best way to do it with the tools that most people have on hand. So really, what you want to [00:58:00.421] optimize at that connection is just making sure that the mass of the end of the fly line is more or less equivalent to the mass of the butt section of the leader. So I wouldn't suggest you do this, obviously, because you're going to ruin a fly line, but essentially you take a fly line and if I cut a foot of the tip of the fly line off, I want a foot of the butt section of the leader to be the same mass or to weigh the same just so I know I have a smooth energy transfer because that's determined mostly by the mass.
Most people aren't going to want to cut their fly line, [00:58:30.370] and most people probably aren't also going to want to go to the extra level of weighing all this componentry. So what you're describing is matching up the stiffness, which I think is it's pretty analogous to the mass, and it will probably give you a better idea of how those masses compare than just not doing anything at all, for sure.
Tom: Yeah, but isn't it more the flexibility as opposed to the mass, or is it the mass that's more important? [00:59:00.411]
Josh: Well, I guess I'll preface everything that I'll say after this with, "This is my opinion."
Tom: My opinion too.
Josh: There's probably some complex physical model that will actually explain this better than I can if anyone ever put any effort into doing it. But my opinion is biased and it's largely based off the opinion of my predecessor, Bruce Richards. And he always told me that he thought that stiffness mattered a bit. But [00:59:30.660] if stiffness was the most important factor in any of this, you know, marrying up a leader in a fly line or just a fly line in itself, you know, how a fly line casts, then it would make sense to try to find the perfect stiffness in a material with very little weight, right? Because it's going to cut through the air better than everything else.
And so the analogy that Bruce always gave me was if stiffness was the most important factor in any of this, we'd be casting [01:00:00.221] piano wire, because you could probably find a piano wire that has roughly the same stiffness as a fly line or a leader butt or something like that, for example, but it would be so thin and it would have no mass it would be uncastable. And hopefully, I came across correctly.
Bruce gave me that analogy to illustrate the fact that if stiffness was the most important, then that scenario should work. We should be able to cast a piano wire that has roughly the same stiffness [01:00:30.720] as a fly line and a leader butt. I haven't tried it personally, but as you can imagine, it probably wouldn't work very well, right?
So on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have a chain, something like a chain that has essentially no stiffness, but some weight to it. And now imagine the opposite scenario, where you find a chain that is the exact same mass as a 5-weight fly line and a chain that is the exact same mass as a leader that you would put on a 5-weight fly line. And you now [01:01:00.491] go out to the casting pond and you try that on a 5-weight, and you could probably cast it beautifully. It'd have no memory. It would load the rod properly, and it would transfer mass all the way to the end of the leader, the chain leader in that scenario.
So that analogy has always kind of stuck with me. And perhaps someone who's more well-versed in physics could disprove it, but in my mind, that actually makes a ton of sense, that mass is the king. I mean, it's how we rate fly lines, which [01:01:30.304] determines how you marry a fly line up to a fly rod. It determines what fly line weight is best optimized for a certain fly size, things like that. So that was a bunch of word soup, but hopefully it illustrated my point. In my mind, the most important thing is mass. And you can approximate mass by doing the bend test like you described, but the ultimate measure would be to actually weigh the two components and match them up.
Tom: Well, you could weigh the tip [01:02:00.127] of your fly line on, like, a grain scale and just drop a certain portion of it on a scale, right? Couldn't you?
Josh: You could. It's a little bit tricky whatever end you have that's still off of the scale. You can see it. I've done it before. If you lift it up or drop it, it'll change the measurement a bit. One way to get around it is if you coil up like 10 feet of fly line and put it on a scale. Now the portion that you're holding and supporting is a much smaller [01:02:30.499] proportion of the overall mass, so there's less error that way. That's probably the best way to do it. So you'd take 10 feet of fly line, coil it up, throw it on a scale, divide that by 10 so you have a weight per foot, and then try to find a leader butt material that matches that weight per foot.
Tom: Oh, boy, getting complicated.
Josh: Yeah, I'll throw this out there, too. Bruce always gave me a pretty easy ratio in that. What he found, if you're matching up a leader to a floating fly line [01:03:00.234] specifically, is that...sorry, a nylon butt section to a floating fly line specifically, is that you want the leader butt to be about 70% of the tip diameter of the fly line.
Tom: Okay. Well, that's a good rule of thumb. And if people really want to get geeky about this stuff and really want to measure your own leaders, need to get a micrometer because I tried it with... [01:03:30.770] I have a caliper and I tried it with a caliper and, boy, it doesn't measure leader diameter very well. I don't know why. Maybe I got a lousy caliper, but micrometer is... You know, and you can get a digital micrometer for not too much money. I think, I don't know, 50 bucks or something like that, but, boy, they're handy. They're handy to have if you're really into leaders.
One of the things I wanted to mention, [01:04:00.609] we talked about extending the butt section, right? And in my view, the reason to extend the butt section is to keep the fly line further away from the fish because the fly line lands harder than any leader on the water. And it's opaque, but I think it's the waves that it pushes. And I tell people, if you think you're spooking fish [01:04:30.429] with your cast, you need a longer leader, and you need to extend the butt section. And if you think drag is the problem, you need a longer tippet. And if the fish are really fussy, then you need both. You need a longer butt and a longer tippet, right?
So you can change a 9-foot leader into a 12-foot leader pretty easily. You cut the loop off your leader. You tie on. [01:05:00.427] Well, when you buy a leader, you're going to see the butt diameter. It's always listed on the leader package. You buy a spool of that 21/1000, 22/1000, 23/1000 and then you just pull off 3 feet and you tie it with a 3-turn blood knot to your leader, put a new loop on it with a perfection loop, and now you got a 12-foot leader. And you can add a lot of butt section, can't you, to a leader without [01:05:30.007] really hurting the presentation.
Josh: Yeah, you can, because the butt section still has enough mass in it that it's fairly powerful. In fact, I mean, that's largely the difference between a 14-foot machine-tapered leader that we sell on a package and a 9-footer. The total length difference is 5 feet. I mean, you know, 60% or 70% of that length difference is just the butt section. So that's often what we do when we make longer [01:06:00.348] machine-tapered leaders, is just add to the butt section.
Tom: Add to the butt section. Okay. That chain analogy you brought up brings up an interesting question that I always get podcast questions about, furled leaders. What do you think about furled leaders?
Josh: I think they can be great. I think the tricky part is just getting the [01:06:30.198] mass correct, because now the density is going to be a little bit different than anything else that you're typically used to using. It's not just a monolithic piece of nylon anymore. There's air on the inside of it. I think some of them you can actually make with nylon threads. So the material density is the same, but if you measure the diameter of a furled leader, the equivalent diameter in a straight mono, you know, nylon mono, is going to be a lot heavier.
So I think they can be [01:07:00.338] fine and they can be great, but matching the mass is a little bit more difficult. And what you'll probably find is that a furled leader is going to need a little bit larger diameter than a machine-tapered leader will because of the difference in mass and density.
Tom: So you're going to have a bigger piece of stuff on the water.
Josh: Sure.
Tom: But it lands fairly light because it's more air resistant, right?
Josh: Yeah. They're going to have more air resistance in part because [01:07:30.232] of the rough surface. And also because the density is lower, it's going to have a larger profile as it tries to cut through the wind. So yeah, you'll have more air resistance for sure. I have a... I think actually Perk sent them to me. Yeah, I'm sure you've used them in the past, Tom, but the old braided butt leaders that Orvis used to carry.
Tom: Yeah.
Josh: Yeah. So those are kind of interesting. I played around with them a little bit, and they're very, very delicate, I think partly because of the taper, but mostly because of [01:08:00.345] what we just talked about. The diameter is a little bit larger. Either the diameter is larger or the mass is less, so it doesn't have quite as much energy in either scenario. And then it also has more drag because of the rough surface.
Tom: More dry.
Josh: But you get a beautiful drag-free drift. I mean, it definitely influences your drift a lot less than a machine-tapered leader.
Tom: Yeah. And these braided butt leaders that Josh is talking about, they're no longer made. It's a really complex process. [01:08:30.073] That was made on a special machine originally in Spain, and then there was a guy in the States that was making them for us, and they're no longer made. Our past CEO, Perkins, loves them. I still use them occasionally, but you can't get them anymore. Is Perk trying to talk you into making them again? [01:09:00.528]
Josh: Yes. I'm hesitant to say it on the podcast. So all you really need is a braiding machine, and actually, we happen to have one here. And so I have successfully recreated them, but it's an incredibly labor-intensive process. So essentially, the way it works is, ours here, I think off the top of my head, is 16 carriers total. So you have [01:09:30.522] 16 individual spools of filament that are winding around and forming this braid. And to get the different sections and to taper it, you know, let's say you start at the butt section, you start with all 16 filaments, you run it for 10 minutes. That gives you 6 feet of butt section. And then you start cutting out these individual filaments to start tapering down the leader.
And so you run it for a specified period of time, you come back, you cut it, you run it again, you come back, [01:10:00.455] you cut it. And so it needs a lot of babysitting. There's basically zero automation to the process. So I don't think it's realistic for us to add to our lineup with labor within SA. You know, if someone ever wanted to do it in the future and they had enough patience, I'm sure they could. But it is possible to recreate, but it's incredibly labor-intensive.
Tom: And they'd be really expensive.
Josh: They would be. Yes.
Tom: Yeah. With all the labor. Now, how about...? [01:10:30.269] Can you describe to people the difference between a braided leader and a furled leader? Because furled leaders are different.
Josh: Yeah. So furled leaders, the furling process is more of a twist. So I'll try to describe it as best I can. When you're bulking up material on a furled leader and you have these sections that have, you know, greater thickness than just the individual filament, essentially all these fibers are just getting [01:11:00.341] sort of twisted back on top of each other, which accomplishes the same thing. You still get a taper out of it.
I think if I were to give my opinion on the difference between a braided leader and a furled leader, one of the biggest differences is that the braided leader seems less rigid, I guess. And I think the furling process makes a more rigid leader just because all those fibers are bound so tightly because they're twisted together.
I've seen [01:11:30.454] some furled leaders, too, I'm not sure if it's super necessary, where they have to actually knot at the end of each section to keep it from coming unraveled as well. I don't think that's the case with, like, opaque ones, but I've seen some that are done with just standard monofilament nylon tippet. And you have to knot the end of each furled section to keep it from unraveling. So it's kind of a pain because you're trying to get this nice, delicate leader. Ideally, it would be knotless, but then you still have to put a couple of knots [01:12:00.070] in it. The braided leaders, they're pretty cool. They're very soft and pretty consistent, but yeah, just a pain to manufacture.
Tom: Uh-huh, yeah, and that's why the ones that we had made in the States were made by one guy, I think, in his garage. It must have been a labor of love.
Josh: Probably the last guy on earth to have that much patience.
Tom: Now, furled leaders, people can make them, right? There are instructions [01:12:30.364] on the web to make a furled leader. And I know the ones that I have seen do not have knots in them, so I don't know, somebody must have figured out how to make them without knots.
Josh: It could have just been the way that I was doing it, or maybe it was the fact that it was made out of a monofilament more than a thread. You needed some extra lock in there because the monofilament's surface was slicker. But yeah, I've seen both. And yes, you're right. It's actually a pretty simple [01:13:00.497] rig to make your own. You just need a long piece of wood with a few pegs in it at different intervals, depending on the taper you're trying to make.
And the way I've done it at least is you just wind certain amount of windings around each distance between the pegs. And then I've done it before with an electric drill, but you kind of make a chain, almost, but each link has a different amount of individual filaments, and that's how you get the taper. And then you attach a hook into a cordless drill. [01:13:30.648] You put one end on a peg, put the other end on the cordless drill, twist it up, and then double it back over itself most often, I think, and it'll give you a tapered leader. It's probably a lot better to go find a YouTube video than to rely on just my description alone. It's relatively easy to do on your own.
Tom: Yep, so people can make those. Have you fished with furled leaders at all?
Josh: I have, yeah. Not a ton, but just a little bit. Some trout fishing, actually. [01:14:00.395] And the most useful scenario I found for it was actually indicator fishing with a wool indicator, like a New Zealand Strike Indicator or something like that. Because it let me build a really short section of furled, essentially as a butt, ended at a tippet ring, and then I could put the indicator on the furled leader, and then below that, I could just add 6, 7 feet of straight tippet and try to get the best sink rate out of my nymphs as I possibly could.
Tom: So it was more like a right-angle [01:14:30.376] leader rig.
Josh: Right, yeah, because the furled leader is so soft, and you have the connection of the tippet ring, it would let your...in my opinion, it'd let the nymphs sink a lot easier because you have straight tippet from the leader to the nymph, and because the connection between the tippet and the leader was so limp, essentially.
Tom: Uh-huh, okay. Do you prefer...? Obviously, you prefer a [01:15:00.107] standard nylon knotless tapered leader to the furled leader. Can you describe why you prefer them?
Josh: Yeah, I think it's just ease of use for me, which seems weird as the guy that designed it. I have probably arguably more access to gear than most people. Most of my fishing is pretty straightforward and not real technical, so I can get by with that, but I would say most of the reason is ease of use, and then [01:15:30.414] probably secondarily, most furled leaders are opaque, so you do lose a little bit of stealth, in my opinion. Probably, like you said, you still maintain some of the landing stealth because it's so light, but it's opaque. You know, if it floats over a fish, they're going to see it.
Tom: Yep, see it more. I mean, they'll see a knotless leader, too, but it's a little more overt when you have a furled leader. [01:16:00.302] Have you tried the thread ones?
Josh: I have, yeah. That was actually what I used for the indicator rig that I was describing, and I think it was... I didn't build that one, but what it seemed like to me was just standard UNI-Thread for fly tying, actually. It was kind of like an olive green color.
Tom: Yeah, they abrade pretty easily, and I found that they sink like crazy unless you grease them up and grease them up and grease them up, and that's it.
Josh: Yeah, I mean, it's [01:16:30.550] analogous to the silk fly line days, right?
Tom: Yeah, right.
Josh: I mean, it's very similar to that, and if you have a braid or a furl, inevitably water's going to be able to get up in there, and it'll change the density a bit. It'll hold water, and because of that, they're more likely to sink, and so you have to treat them to keep them floating reliably, for sure.
Tom: Yep. The other question I get on leaders is loop-to-loop versus nail knot. [01:17:00.260] What are your opinions on the loop-to-loop system versus nail knotting your leader to your fly line?
Josh: Sure. Yeah, well, I'll get back to my preface of saying this is a biased opinion again. In my mind, most people... So nail knots came about because we didn't originally have welded loops on fly lines. It was like your only option for attaching leaders [01:17:30.392] to a fly line.
Tom: Right, yeah.
Josh: And we came out with welded loops and an easier system of attaching a leader through a loop-to-loop connection. You have a perfection loop on your leader and a welded loop on your fly line. And so now, the only reason to use a nail knot is... The two arguments I've heard is tradition. If you just happen to like to be a traditionalist and nail knot your leader butt to your fly line, that's fine. But I also hear people making the argument that they get a better energy transfer, [01:18:00.399] again, because the stiffness is matched up better.
But if what I alluded to earlier, what I said earlier, was true and stiffness doesn't really matter, then you should, in theory, be able to get as smooth of a turnover and an energy transfer out of a loop-to-loop connection as you do a nail knot. Probably going to blow up the comments section on this one with that, but...
Tom: It's okay.
Josh: ...I don't think it really matters, to be honest. One of the most [01:18:30.535] compelling reasons that I've heard is maybe just ease of getting the knot in and out of the rod tip or any of the guides on the rod, for that matter. I know some saltwater guys that still prefer doing a nail knot just because they think that connection goes in and out of the guides better if they have a fishboat side.
Tom: Right. I don't see that problem. As long as you point your rod at the fish [inaudible 01:18:52.507], I find that the loop-to-loop connection goes through my guys just as smoothly as a nail knot.
Josh: And I think [01:19:00.388] I would tend to agree with you, too, but I'm not going to tell anybody that their opinion is wrong.
Tom: Yeah, right. Yeah, I mean, fly fishing is all subjective, and you and I, we know the loops, we trust them. I mean, you make them, you know how strong they are. I mean, the loops are actually stronger than a fly line. We've tested that.
Josh: Yeah. If you pull test a connection in a loop-to-loop connection at the end of the line, we expect the fly line to fail or the butt section of the leader to fail [01:19:30.481] before the loop actually welds itself. And I'll mention one other thing in passing just before I forget. So one thing that can happen with cutting off the loop and adding a nail knot is you can actually get the tip of your fly line to start to sink. And what happens with floating lines, with our lines especially, I think most of them, is that the braided core in the center of the fly line is hollow because you have an air chamber throughout the entire length of your [01:20:00.314] fly line.
And if you cut the loop off, there's no longer a seal to keep water from getting into that core. You might be able to cinch down a nail knot tight enough to seal it a decent amount. Or I know some guys that will put a nail knot on and then try to seal the open end of the fly line with some super glue or something like that. So there's ways to kind of get around it. But I mentioned it just to say that as soon as you cut that loop off, there is a much higher potential of getting water inside the core, which is [01:20:30.944] going to start to affect the flotation of your line.
Tom: Well, that brings up a good question. A lot of people are now recommending, particularly for Euro nymphing leaders, of clinch knotting the leader right to the loop. And, of course, eventually, that cuts through the coating of the loop. And, in fact, with use, those [01:21:00.697] loops do eventually get cut through the coating, even with a loop-to-loop connection. If you fish them hard enough, it will cut through. What's the best way to remedy that when you get that loop a little bit cut?
Josh: That's a good question. If your loop is already ruined, there's a couple of things you can do. Probably the best is to go out and buy a product [01:21:30.359] called ReLOOP. It's actually a company that we're going to start distributing for. The company is called RestorLine, R-E-S-T-O-R-L-I-N-E. And they make some prepackaged heat-shrink tubing for reforming loops, which is actually really cool. It's a double-walled heat shrink. So you put this thing on, you heat it up with a heat gun. The whole thing contracts onto the loop and welds it. And then you peel away the outer sleeve of this product, and the inner [01:22:00.675] sleeve remains on there as reinforcement. So if you've completely ruined your loop, you can make a new one with that pretty easily. It's probably actually the easiest way to make a new loop.
Tom: Interesting. When's that going to hit the market with SA?
Josh: It's already on the market now, actually. I think you can get it directly through RestorLine's website. SA is going to pick it up to try to get better distribution to fly shops, but we don't have it. We don't have distribution. We don't have items for distribution, probably for another month or so. But the [01:22:30.485] guy that owns the company is great, and I would recommend anybody just go purchase directly from him too.
Tom: Ah, good. So you just have to fold your fly line back again. Do you trim the fly line back in a little taper?
Josh: You can, yep, if you want a smoother transition, I'm sure. But the nice thing about this product is that that inner sleeve actually smooths...either end of that inner sleeve will smooth out pretty well on its own. It's not like a... It's hard to describe. It's not like a normal heat shrink, where once you shrink it, [01:23:00.436] the ends of the heat shrink are basically just straight edges, and they form a huge bump that has a weird catch on it. So this stuff handles most of that on its own.
Tom: And that's going to be as strong as the factory loop?
Josh: It will if you weld it long enough to get the coating to adhere to itself. It's a little hard to see because the sleeves aren't clear. I think he has some good instructions on there for, like, how long and what temperature you should use to actually weld it. But yeah, as long as you [01:23:30.235] get it hot enough that the fly line coating is actually melting to itself underneath the sleeve, it should be just as strong or maybe even a little bit stronger than our factory-welded loops.
Tom: Interesting, interesting.
Josh: To prevent it from happening in the first place is a bit difficult, but one of the best things you can do is ensure you're actually doing a loop-to-loop connection instead of nail-knotting directly to the loop, which doesn't spread the load out over as much of an area. And then also just [01:24:00.032] ensuring that whatever leader butt you're attaching to the fly line has a big enough diameter to keep it from cutting into the coating. If you use a really small butt diameter, it's going to cut into the coating a lot easier than a large butt diameter will.
Tom: Yeah. Now... Oh, another question. We started talking about leaders, but we got some fly line questions that I get frequently I'm thinking of. One of the things that happens is that sometimes your tippet wraps around your fly line, and if you're not [01:24:30.501] careful and you pull on it, you cut through the coating.
Josh: Yeah.
Tom: I generally tell people that, you know, you're screwed once you cut through the coating. Could you repair a fly line with this heat shrink, a short piece of this heat shrink tubing, too?
Josh: Yeah. So RestorLine is the company. I don't have one in front of me, but the LOOP product, I'm fairly certain, is called ReLOOP, [01:25:00.342] but they also have at least two other versions. One of them is a little smaller diameter intended for repairing a fly line, like the scenario you described, because it's not a doubled-over piece anymore. And then there, I think they just came out with one that you can actually use for splicing pieces of fly line together, like if you're trying to make your own spay head and you wanted to put a integrated running line on the back end.
So there's a few different options there. [01:25:30.419] I would just suggest if it's unclear that you reach out to RestorLine, tell them what size fly line you have, what you're trying to do, and they'll probably get you the correct diameter that you need.
Tom: Oh, that's an awesome resource. That's great. That's great. That's going to be useful in many people because I get lots of questions about that. And, you know, a drop of super glue doesn't really work.
Josh: Yeah, super glue won't really stick to our coatings, not really any fly line coating for very long. It's just [01:26:00.751] a very difficult connection because it flexes so much.
Tom: Yeah, yeah. And can you finally end the worry from people who constantly worry about how to store their fly lines and whether they can keep them in a hot car? I still get this question. I tell people you don't need to worry about [01:26:30.323] anything.
Josh: Right, yeah. I mean, in general, it's best to keep them out of significant heat. It's best to keep them out of UV. And this goes for fly lines, and leader and tippet. Fluorocarbon is pretty much impervious to anything, so you don't really have to worry about fluorocarbon too much. But let's just say categorically, you know, nylon leaders and tippet, and fly lines are susceptible to roughly the same things. So if you keep them out of... It's best to keep them out of high heat. It's best to keep them out of UV.
But reasonable [01:27:00.404] amounts of exposure on either end isn't going to kill any of those products. You have to say it with the caveat of, you know, if you're in Tempe, Arizona, in the middle of July, and you have a black car and all of your fishing tackle is in there, you know, that might get hot enough now that it's causing an issue. But it all depends. I mean, if it's hot enough to, you know, kill a dog or something, if you left it in a hot car, I would maybe be a little bit concerned about a fly line or [01:27:30.492] leader and tippet in there. But in Vermont, in Michigan, you know, in the Northwest, Pacific Northwest, whatever, I think generally you're going to be fine.
Tom: Uh-huh. How often do you replace your nylon tippet, your personal fishing tippet?
Josh: That's a good question. So I'll say that I'm probably the opposite of most anglers. I'm not very great at taking care of my gear and all... You know, [01:28:00.212] I don't practice what I preach in storage. I'll say that outright. But that being said, I typically don't...I don't have to throw away leaders and tippet or fly lines because they've sat too long and degraded. So generally, I'll run out before I have to replace it for other reasons.
And, you know, a spool of, let's say, 16-pound nylon tippet for bass fishing, which is what I do most often, you know, I'll get a whole season out of it, and then I'll replace it. [01:28:30.583] And if I didn't use it regularly, I'd probably feel comfortable holding on to it for two or three years.
Tom: Yeah. And that's what I've gone to. But I don't trust 5x and smaller in nylon. I've had some problems. I've had some problems with 5x that was, yeah, maybe 3 or 4 years old, and it was stored in the dark and in a cool room, but still, I think it was breaking [01:29:00.447] quicker than it should have.
Josh: Sure. Yeah, I mean, one thing that's interesting with nylon and especially small diameters in nylon is you now have... The smaller you go in tippet, the more careful you have to be about dispensing it off of the spool, which is one thing that I've come to find.
We actually switched over all of our tippet bands to a soft silicone material a few years ago. And the main reason for that was, previously, we had [01:29:30.777] an elastic band that had a metal grommet that was actually stamped into the elastic. And on occasion, you could get one of those metal grommets that had a sharp edge on it, and it would essentially ruin the tippet as you're dispensing it.
We caught that early on, and we made some changes to make sure it doesn't happen anymore, but ultimately, we felt it was just safer to switch the material. So yeah, with nylon, especially how you dispense it in small diameters, can make a difference in strength.
Tom: Yeah, it can score it and make it kinky [01:30:00.675] and weaken it, right? All right. I have one final question for you, Josh.
Josh: Okay.
Tom: You're the expert on leaders and tippet. What knot do you use trout fishing for, let's say, a size 14 nymph and a 4x tippet? What knot do you use to attach [01:30:30.862] the fly to the tippet?
Josh: If I want the absolute strongest connection, that's what I'm going for?
Tom: Yep.
Josh: Okay, yeah, if I'm going for the strongest connection and I have little to no concern about the size of the knot, the strongest knot I have experienced with is the uni knot, for sure.
Tom: Really? The uni knot?
Josh: The uni knot, yeah. And I think we talked about this in the last podcast I did. So in my mind, [01:31:00.864] there's two things that cause a knot to fail. So when you tie a knot, you have two sort of forces, right? You have a constriction force, where you have all these wraps around the standing line. And those wraps are trying to constrict on the standing line, and if they constrict enough, they're going to start changing the diameter of the tippet. And the smaller that diameter gets, the weaker it's going to get.
The second aspect is [01:31:30.439] how much heat you generate in tying your knot, which is also directly correlated to how many wraps you have. So you want more wraps to spread the constrictive load, but you want less wraps to prevent too much heat buildup when you're actually tying the knot. And again, this is not scientific at all. This is just how I think about it, how my brain works.
And what I found is that the uni knot is unique in that you're doubling it over. So you're doing your [01:32:00.298] wraps around the standing line, but also one other parallel piece of tippet. And this seems to help a lot, in my opinion. So if I'm going for strictly strength, typically I'll do a uni knot. If I do a...
Actually, I've changed my opinion a bit on loop knots, so I'll maybe refrain from saying anything there. But if I'm just attaching directly to a fly, not concerned about size, I don't need a loop for freedom of movement or [01:32:30.808] whatever, uni knot's generally the one I go with.
Tom: Oh, boy.
Josh: The Orvis knot is also very good, though. I will say that. I've tested that as well pretty extensively.
Tom: Yeah. Well, I have always been a standard clinch knot guy, and now I'm going to have to practice the uni knot so I can tie it well. And then... Yeah, go ahead.
Josh: The one thing that I've always struggled with on clinch knots, and I guess this is a question for you, is I have really good success with clinch knots when the tippet diameter [01:33:00.273] and the gauge of the hook eye, the actual wire diameter, are pretty similar.
Tom: Yes, yes.
Josh: But if I go to attach a 5x to a size 2 streamer eye with a clinch knot, it never seems to work. Do you ever see anything happen?
Tom: No, it doesn't.
Josh: Yeah.
Tom: In that case, I use a Trilene knot where I go through the eye twice, and that seems to help.
Josh: Okay, yeah, that's another good one, yeah.
Tom: And then the final question is, when you're tying [01:33:30.117] 2 pieces of tippet material together in fine diameter, let's say you're going 4x to 5x, what knot do you use?
Josh: Again, if I want the absolute strongest connection, a double uni, so back-to-back uni would probably be my preferred. But generally speaking, I want the fly knot to be the strongest, and then everything else is kind of an afterthought because it's a little bit bigger diameter. So what I use most often is a blood knot.
Tom: A blood knot. How many turns? [01:34:00.917]
Josh: For the tippet end, generally five or six. And then if I'm building my own leader and I'm blood knotting blood sections, if it's a 40-pound butt section, I'll only do like 3 wraps or something like that.
Tom: Yeah, and the heavier stuff, I think you'd get away with three wraps. Okay. So a double uni, huh?
Josh: And pretty strong.
Tom: Okay, I'm going to have to go sit down and practice a uni knot. [01:34:30.210] Learn something new every day.
Josh: Yeah, I mean, hopefully it works for whoever tries it, and I'm not putting my foot in my mouth, but it works for me.
Tom: Every guide that I ever talk to, 95% is a standard clinch knot. So I tend to go with what guides use, but I'm going to play around with a uni knot.
Josh: What's your preferred loop knot? [01:35:00.509]
Tom: Non-slip monoloop, but I like to do the...I think it's called the [inaudible 01:35:08.103] variation, where I tie a double overhand and then get a figure eight and go through the figure eight. What do you use for a loop knot? I don't like loop knots. I don't use them very often.
Josh: Yeah, I mean, most often I would just default to a no-slip monoloop, Lefty Kreh Loop, or whatever you want to call it. [01:35:30.820] But I've had a few of those fail, and just within the last six months, I've had a buddy show me the Homer Rhodes knot that he'll actually use for really small tippet, too. Hopefully, I'm not saying the name incorrectly. So it's essentially an overhand knot. You go through the hook eye, go back through the overhand knot, and then you just tie another overhand knot to lock it in. So the knot is literally two overhand knots just back to back.
And I've tested it a bit, and it's actually [01:36:00.600] pretty strong. It's probably sort of similar to the figure eight you're describing. I know... I mean, Steve Huff has, like, a double figure eight that he invented or made up for shock tippet for [crosstalk 01:36:14.033]. And I've done that in smaller sizes as well, and it seems to hold pretty well, but it's completely contrarian to what I said about trying to optimize the number of wraps and heat generation because it's either two overhand knots or two figure eights, which are hardly any wraps, and they're still pretty strong. [01:36:30.630]
Tom: Huh, because I've always understood the Homer Rhode loop was good for shock tippet, but not so good for finer diameters, and you're saying that...
Josh: That was my opinion too, and then I've since talked to a few people, some still water anglers that use it on 5x for trout and have success with it. So I would say it's worth playing with, especially if you have a low-pressure situation where you don't mind breaking off some flies because it's a really neat and small knot if you tie it correctly. [01:37:00.435]
Tom: Yeah, wow. Oh, boy, we're going down a rabbit hole with knots.
Josh: I think, and you have opened up more questions than I answered.
Tom: Well, that's okay because we're all always learning about these things, and it's good to be open-minded about what you do. So you've gotten me on a road to playing around with some more knots.
Josh: Great. [01:37:30.366]
Tom: All right, Josh, well, thank you so much. We were originally going to talk about leaders, and we got into knots and fly lines, but it's always great talking to you, and like I said, you're the guy that geeks out on this stuff, and so appreciate all your feedback and all your knowledge.
Josh: Yeah, thanks for having me on, Tom. It was great.
Tom: All right, Josh.
Man: Thanks for listening to the "Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast" with Tom [01:38:00.374] Rosenbauer. You can be a part of the show. Have a question or a comment? Send it to us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. in the body of an email or as a voice attachment. You can find more free fishing tips at howtoflyfish.orvis.com.