Can you guys give me some ideas on where I can get ferled leaders ?I have anly come up with 2 possibilities . What material should the leaders be made from?

They can be thread or mono material. I prefer those made of thread. Enter "furled leader" on google and about 67k references can be seen.

Stan Grace
Helena, MT
"Our best is none too good"

Or you can make your own. I have been making my own for a number of years. Here is a link that tells you everything you need to make them, it has multiple pages just open each one.

[globalflyfisher.com]

Bob
LaPine, OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2006 02:18PM by Bob Crook.

Or I could make them for you, I have been furling for 2 years, and the leaders arre great.

I looked at the site that Bob recommended and have to say thanks for the education. In fifty years of fishing I have never heard of a Furled leader before. But what is the advantage of this type of leader?

Cabela's and Feathercraft I believe carry furled leaders.

I have written a how-to-do-it article you might find helpful [www.peninsulaflyfishers.org] The advantage of them is that being stranded over the whole length, they are much more supple than monofilament tapered leaeders, so you get the mechanics of the taper without the stiffness. They lose less energy so they turn over longer lengths of tippet.

Mike

Ok, advantages: they are very durable, they cast great, (they are great for big flies too) you can switch tippit diameter whenever you want, to a point, and for nymph fishermen a bright yellow leader, with the butt half treated with floatant makes a great strike indicator.

Mike,
Thanks, that is very interesting. After reading your article and thinking about it I think that I understand the advantages.
I wonder if these might not make sense with a non-fly rod when using braided line. Braided line can sometimes be a problem because of the lack of any give when setting the hook. It appears as if you could control the amount of give or stretch with this type of leader. Just a thought that might be fun to try.

John Quigley in California [[email protected]] makes mine and they are the nicest I have seen. I have them made with a neutral tip and a bright orange butt to serve as a strike indicator, wet or dry fly. John makes them in different lengths and tapers in various thread colors, even silk. I will never use a mono leader again. I am currently experimenting with one made for vertical nymphing. Don

Emory

The use of a tapered leader of any kind is mostly related to flycasting as it extends the taper of the fly line. The mechanics of a flycast are like those of a bullwhip. The crack of a bullwhip is due to the tip (or tippet) exceeding the speed of sound. How does this happen since the fastest a human can move a hand is about 100 mph (major league baseball pitchers)? This is a factor of seven slower the the speed of sound (700 mph). At the point where the casting or whip stroke stops the fly line or the whip has a certain amount of kinetic energy. As it unrolls, the energy that was in the part that goes static or still transfers into the moving part. The moving part becomes ever lighter (less and less mass) as it unrolls so it has to speed up so that energy is conserved (ignoring air resistance for a moment here). The accelerating force is the velocity times the rate of change of mass. A tapered line or whip has a greater rate of change of mass than a level line. Now a bullwhip cracks because it's relatively heavy and not much affected by air resistance, while with good flycasting technique the balance between air resistance and and the accelerating force is such that the fly pretty much just comes to a stop as the end of the tippet has finished unrolling. If it weren't for this enery transfer effect, fly casting wouln't work. Of course with less good technique, there can be the notorious two dollar crack where the tip of leader doe exceed the speed of sound sending $2 worth of fly who-knows-where.

In other kinds of casting, the weight of the line doesn't have much of role. I guess one could make a level furled leader. The jig for doing it would be rather simpler than for a tapered leader.

Mike