How to Attach a Leader (18 of 39)

So, how do you get a leader on a fly line? The easiest way is most fly lines come with a permanent loop on the end. So, there's a loop there on your fly line and there's a loop on the end of your leader. All you do is take the leader, and you pass the leader over the line loop and then you pass your leader through the line loop like so, you pull it through, all the way through, and then you just close the loop. Sometimes you have to kind of give that knot a little poke. You have to push it up a little bit. And then you're left with a beautiful square knot, which is very, very secure. And if you need to change a leader, it's very easy to just back that off and pull the leader back through.
Let's say you don't have a permanent loop on your fly line, maybe your fly line didn't come with one, or sometimes those permanent loops after years of use will kind of wear out, and the coral start to get exposed, and you have to replace them. So, you can put a leader directly onto your fly line. But you wanna use a nice clean knot that's gonna go through your guides and is not gonna affect your casting.
So, to tie a nail knot, you're gonna need a little special tool. They have tools on some knives where you can get a tool to tie a nail knot, or you can just use a very thin diameter tube, a small metal tube, even the inside of a ballpoint pen. But you need to you need a small rigid tube to tie it. And here's how to tie that nail knot.
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So, this is fine, but it's a permanent connection. Your leader is always on there. And if you always use the same leader and you just modify the other end of the leader, that's fine. But if you're gonna change leaders, maybe change leader lengths or something, then this could be a pain because you have to keep tying nail knots. And honestly, a nail knot isn't the easiest thing in the world to tie, believe me. So, there's another way of doing this so that you can change leaders quickly. All you need to do is take about a couple of feet of either leader butt section material or about 50-pound monofilament and tie a perfection loop in the end of this piece.
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And now, you've got a permanent loop on the end of your fly line. Now, I can just attach leader and I can change leaders anytime I want. So, I've gotten away from having to tie a nail knot every time I change leaders.
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