A good leader is one of the most important part of our fly fishing tackle, a fact too often underestimated. We actually all need a good recipe for a smooth and functional knotted leader.
Here in Italy we pay lot of attention to leaders preparation, especially when the conditions are right to use the technique we love so much, fishing the dry fly.
During those years we've been consolidating, sharing ideas and working with different fly-casting schools and after lot of testing we came out with a simple yet very efficient formula.
The biggest difficult is always to find a perfect balance between the major 3 components of a good leader:
POWER
TAPER
TIP
You need POWER to transfer efficiently the energy from your muscles to your rod and line and then to your leader, without losing this power in this process.
A leader has to have a good TAPER to bring that energy till the last section of the tippet and to the fly.
The TIP is one of the most important part of this system because with an overall balanced leader you can easily control the position of the leader on the water by changing the length and the diameter of the tippet
The leader has to move exactly in the way you want and has to do what your cast is doing to properly being considered responsive at its best.
In order to reach this result you need the right nylon and the right recipe. For us the best nylon is the Maxima Chameleon, synonymous of quality, softness and no memory. A nylon without equal in the world.
This is our general recipe (5m leader) for allowing you to start your leaders experiment and find your very own signature style.
POWER 180 cm ø 0.50mm
TAPER 90 cm ø 0.40mm
60 cm ø 0.30mm
30 cm ø 0.20mm
TIP 140 cm ø of your choice
Every segment is connected to each other with a blood knot, you can do it in hand or with the help of a tool like the Cottarelli Blood Knot Tool.
It is a nice and smart tool which allows you to realize perfect knots without wasting thread or your time! We also have the Cottarelli Blood Knot Tool Kit, the perfect choice for those who want to buy the tool and all the spools needed to make several knotted leaders at a good price.
Let us know what you think about our scheme and if you came up with something interesting let's talk about it!