Furled Leaders
Posted: December 29th, 2007, 10:19 am
If your interested in building furled leaders I would recommend two sites and the below tips.
I would read Mike McGuire's webpage on http://www.peninsulaflyfishers.org/Tack ... eader.html. His web page tells you all you need to know. This page will give you a jig with two length options. Only drawback is you build a leader leg and then you have to build the second leg while the other is moved to the side, hanging free looking for something to mess it up.
The second page is the one on midcurrent.com - http://www.midcurrent.com/articles/gear ... eader.aspx. I used this site to build my first jig, there are many other pages showing different methods to build a furled leader, but I choose these two or maybe they choose me. This will only give you one leader option. Advantage is you have both leaders legs laid out under tension prior to spinning.
Another notable site:
Humble Fishermen - I almost built this one, only thing I did not like was having to unleash 19' ft of leader, spinning it, unhooking it and then halving it. But there are certain aspects of it I like and may try it one day.
Notable things to know:
Use a overhand loop knot, don't get fancy and do a double surgeons knot, it's not needed and will cause a bump in the finished leader. Use this knot to start the leader and to finish on the last peg.
Midcurrent.com states that you should have say 4 loops on the first leg, it's actually 4 1/2, you have to continue past the peg to the next one.
If your starting from the right going to your left, all the looping should go away from you as in the picture below (you would be where the words strand are):
You can go around and through the pegs on the loops or you can go through the previous and pull the tag end in front of the peg and continue looping as in this picture.
Advantage of going in front of the peg (in picture) is it is easier to pull off the peg when getting ready to spin.
After spinning both legs make sure you do not loosen tension on either leg or you will end up with a wild hair in the finished leader. One leader is still on the drill, if the one not on the drill is longer, you need to reverse the drill and make them both the same. If anything the loose leader leg should be shorter to help keep tension. If you do cause the leader to twist up, keep tension on everything and go massage the kink out.
Once you have twisted both legs together counter clock wise, take a 6" piece of mono and stick it through the small gap on the tippet and do a loose overhand knot, maybe double it. This will keep the ends neat and in order until you can finish them. Do all this while keeping tension on the line. Now remove the tippet from the drill holding tightly at the end. Reach down 12 inches or so firmly grab the leader and then release the tippet, it will spin. I add a 2 oz weight to the tippet with a paper clip, it helps. Keep working down the leader 12 inches at a time until you have slowly released all the tension from the leader. Then add a piece of mono to the other end of the leader like you did on the tippet. If you accidentally loose the tip and end up with a snarled mess of line, it is okay too...I just prefer to slowly release the tension
It's really simple...writing the instructions or comprehending them is probably the hardest part of the whole process.
Getting into the science of increasing the taper, number of loops, what size line to use, etc is another discussion in it's self.
The above ramblings are my interpretation of the process and should be taken with a grain of salt
I would read Mike McGuire's webpage on http://www.peninsulaflyfishers.org/Tack ... eader.html. His web page tells you all you need to know. This page will give you a jig with two length options. Only drawback is you build a leader leg and then you have to build the second leg while the other is moved to the side, hanging free looking for something to mess it up.
The second page is the one on midcurrent.com - http://www.midcurrent.com/articles/gear ... eader.aspx. I used this site to build my first jig, there are many other pages showing different methods to build a furled leader, but I choose these two or maybe they choose me. This will only give you one leader option. Advantage is you have both leaders legs laid out under tension prior to spinning.
Another notable site:
Humble Fishermen - I almost built this one, only thing I did not like was having to unleash 19' ft of leader, spinning it, unhooking it and then halving it. But there are certain aspects of it I like and may try it one day.
Notable things to know:
Use a overhand loop knot, don't get fancy and do a double surgeons knot, it's not needed and will cause a bump in the finished leader. Use this knot to start the leader and to finish on the last peg.
Midcurrent.com states that you should have say 4 loops on the first leg, it's actually 4 1/2, you have to continue past the peg to the next one.
If your starting from the right going to your left, all the looping should go away from you as in the picture below (you would be where the words strand are):
You can go around and through the pegs on the loops or you can go through the previous and pull the tag end in front of the peg and continue looping as in this picture.
Advantage of going in front of the peg (in picture) is it is easier to pull off the peg when getting ready to spin.
After spinning both legs make sure you do not loosen tension on either leg or you will end up with a wild hair in the finished leader. One leader is still on the drill, if the one not on the drill is longer, you need to reverse the drill and make them both the same. If anything the loose leader leg should be shorter to help keep tension. If you do cause the leader to twist up, keep tension on everything and go massage the kink out.
Once you have twisted both legs together counter clock wise, take a 6" piece of mono and stick it through the small gap on the tippet and do a loose overhand knot, maybe double it. This will keep the ends neat and in order until you can finish them. Do all this while keeping tension on the line. Now remove the tippet from the drill holding tightly at the end. Reach down 12 inches or so firmly grab the leader and then release the tippet, it will spin. I add a 2 oz weight to the tippet with a paper clip, it helps. Keep working down the leader 12 inches at a time until you have slowly released all the tension from the leader. Then add a piece of mono to the other end of the leader like you did on the tippet. If you accidentally loose the tip and end up with a snarled mess of line, it is okay too...I just prefer to slowly release the tension
It's really simple...writing the instructions or comprehending them is probably the hardest part of the whole process.
Getting into the science of increasing the taper, number of loops, what size line to use, etc is another discussion in it's self.
The above ramblings are my interpretation of the process and should be taken with a grain of salt
