Fly Fishing Leader - Types and Length

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Fly Fishing Leader - Types and Length

A fly fishing leader is a line that leads from the fly line itself to the fly.

It is common for a tippet to be found at the end of the leader, which is some of the lightest line at the bit. A leader should be as long as the fly rod or a bit longer. I'll mention lengths later in this article.

Commercial fly fishing leader in plastic cover

There are several different types of leaders.

You can buy tapered leaders. The butt of leader is always stiffer than the tip of the leader. The design of the leader makes it so that the leader unrolls and the fly lands gently into the water so the fly does not scare the fish.

Commercially tapered leaders are one type of monofilament. They are thicker at the butt line than at the tippet. A tapered fly fishing leader can be mimicked with a hand tied leader.

Leaders And Tippets

A typical construction of a salt water leader is that the butt is a 4 � lb. monofilament line.
The next section is 2 � feet of 30 lb. monofilament line.
The third section is 2 � feet of 20 lb. monofilament line.
The tippet is attached to the end section.

The tippet itself would typically be attached to the end of the leader and the knots would be blood knots. This is for a nine foot leader system. The fly fishing leader can be scaled down by the length. The poundage of the leaders would be scaled down by about five poundage line with a shortening length.

Commercial leaders are great because they have less knots. However, hand tied leaders give fishermen the option to tie their own leaders using the knots that they want. Many times hand tied leaders also cost less than commercial leaders.

For tying leaders, there is a program known as LeaderCalc. This is a free download.

These are the monofilament type leaders. They can be monofilament or fluorocarbon.

Braided leaders can be bought commercially. The leader is braided from monofilament strands rather than the straight monofilament. It is also slightly tapered so it is made differently from the other types of leaders.

A third type of leader is called a furled or twined leader. These are made out of strands of fly tying thread or very thin monofilament. These are hand made leaders. Very few commercial sources sell these types of fly fishing leaders.

Tippet sizes are designated by an X system. The following paragraph is how the X system works.

The X system is supposed to be in metric or English measurements.

1 0X corresponds to a tip diameter of 0.28 mm or 0.11 in. and a test of 6.8 kg or 15 lbs.
2 1X is 0.26 mm or 0.010 in. diameter and a test of 5.5 kg or 12 lbs.
3 2X is 0.23 mm or 0.009 in. diameter and a test of 4.5 kg or 10 lbs.
4 3X is 0.20 mm or 0.008 in. diameter and a test of 3.2 kg or 7 lbs.
5 4X is 0.18 mm or 0.007 in. diameter and a 2.3 kg or 5lb. test.
6 5X is 0.15 mm or 0.006 in. diameter and a test of 1.8 kg or 4 lbs.
7 6X is 0.13 mm or 0.005 in. in diameter and a test of 1.4 kg. Or 3 lbs.
8 7X is 0.10 mm or 0.004 in. in diameter and a test of 0.9 kg or 2 lbs.
9 8X is 0.07 mm or 0.003 in. diameter and 0.6 kg or 1lb.

Test. Thus, the higher the X number, the thinner the line, and it has a lower test strength.

Different brands might show slightly different test numbers, but the diameters should be about the same. Tippets are available both in nylon monofilament and fluorocarbon monofilament. The difference is that fluorocarbon is denser and sinks better than nylon as well as a closer index of refraction closer to water making it less visible in the water.

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