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Interesting read on leader materials.

2K views 4 replies 5 participants last post by  Adrian 
#1 ·
flyfisherman.com/skills/gstippetsiffness
 
#4 ·
That's an excellent reference Fred, thanks.

They got a little too far into the minutia for my way of thinking, but it was interesting just the same. Signs of a long winter ;)

This got me thinking... unless we're talking trout fishing tippet, how much value do people put in differences between stiffness of leader material? If a leader is very supple or very stiff, I tend to stay away from it. That being said I have not seen any leader material that I felt was too stiff or supple for me for steelheading, salmon or stripers in saltwater since the old Rio saltwater leader material in the early 90's and that was excellent butt / taper material, just not good tippet and that was mostly due to it's chalky sheen and the feeling of hardness in the fingers when tying knots.

I choose Maxima Ultragreen for a number of reasons but I don't feel it's more supple or stiffer than 99% of other lines, especially after you cast it a while.

I choose it because:

1) I like the color
2) I like the pound test / diam increments for building leaders
3) It's really strong

That's about it. I don't think about whether it's stiff or supple unless I am fishing fine for trout tippets.

I'll bet could grab a spool of every brand of 10, 12 or 15# test including the bulk stren and trilene off the bass angling shelf, the Ande and the store brand and if blindfolded people could not tell the difference between them, never mind on the end of a double haul or reaching Spey cast.

I could see though that trout anglers would be very concerned about their tippet characteristics - but even then the butt and taper seem to me inconsequential... and tippets for game species of size seem to be measured by a whole different criteria, unless I am mistaken.

Opinions?
 
#5 · (Edited)
I have no idea of the physics involved in the process but my guess is that stiffness would be a factor in the ability of the leader to efficiently transmit the energy involved in turning the fly over and hence, getting a good presentation. Also, the steeper the taper, the faster the turnover - the old bull-whip analogy.

My guess would be that energy would be lost in stiffer material faster due to its resistance to bending - hence less efficient at turning over the fly - but - these things are often counterintuitive. I tend to think of the energy passing through the line a bit like water flowing through a pipe - as the pipe narrows the flow speed up.

Any physics/applied math grads out there?

I would agree that in the larger / big game sizes these differences become less noticeable - a bit like discussing the relative casting actions of two different 14 wt rods:)
 
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