Furled Leaders (Part 3 of 3)

In the previous entries, Part 1 and Part 2, we discussed the pros and cons of furled leaders, the types of furled leaders available, and the setup and rigging of a furled leader. With the third and final portion, I hope to catch just the tip of the iceberg on what is possible when it comes to making your own furled leaders, customizations that ate possible, and leave with some additional resources, should you wish to delve deeper.

If you simply want to put a furled leader on your usual dry-fly rod, by all means, drop an email to Carl, and have him make something to suit your needs.

That being said, if you think you're ready to give furling a chance, let me give you some words of encouragement. First off, unlike fly tying, the ROI with furled leaders can happen pretty quickly. You likely have most, if not all, materials needed to start furling, and within just a couple hours, you can be producing basic, functional leaders.

Also, like fly tying, furling can be very rewarding, and can be another challenge in this deep, dark hole that is fly fishing.

Now, about getting started, the first thing you will need is a looping jig - this is how the taper of the material for the leader is built, my making multiple loops of your source material around the various pegs.

I followed the overall design and initial formula from a great article in Hatches Magazine. Breck Miller did a phenomenal job on the article, and quite frankly, I see no reason to try to repeat, or re-explain anything he's written. What is great about this system, and it’s the system/basic formula that I use, is that it requires little, if anything that you don't likely already have... and absolutely NOTHING about it can't be found at your local hardware store for less than a few dollars. The only specialty item is a "Nit Picker", available for about $3 at Joanne Fabrics, and other fine fly tying crafting retailers.

Some differences between Breck's jig and my own: He used 1/2" Dowel, I Used 1" dowel that I cut from an old broomstick(again, using what's available, though bigger dowels make for easier passing of spools when making the loops) . For the end peg, I found that 1/2" or 1" was just too large and made my Shorb loop come out messy - so I make my end post short, then hammered a 1/8" diameter nail into it (predrill first!), and cut off the head of the nail with a Dremel and filed smooth. This makes my end loop smaller and final Shorb loop cleaner, YMMV.

Now, before continuing you'll need a basic understanding of how the furled leader is made.

Essentially, a jig is used; equivalent to what your see to the left in my messy garage, and line is wrapped around the pegs to give you a different number of strands at each section (Taper). Breck's formula, a formula that I still often use, starts with 11 loops/22 strands of material in the butt section (5 1/2 loops, 11 strands per leg), and 3 loops/6 strands of material in the tip section (1 1/2 loops, 3 strands per leg).

Once the loops are established, leader is essentially V-shaped, with the tip in the "corner" of the "V" and the butt section at the tips.

One at a time (though not necessarily), the legs of the leader are twisted extensively using an electric drill with an open hook in its chuck. Both legs are twisted the SAME DIRECTION, and kept separate.

Once twisting is complete, the two legs are brought together, and hung by the butt section with weight (3-4oz) attached to the tip section. Then, on its own, the leader begins "Furling", all on its own. the two legs become intertwined into one, and the tension, built during twisting, is relieved from the leader.

The Leader is finished with Shorb loops or other finishing methods.

This is where the fun starts. If you do nothing other than copy exactly what is in the Hatches Article, Great, you're now making perfectly serviceable furled leaders... but this really is not the only way to do it.

Carl (there I go, bringing him up again) has an interesting method where instead of twisting the two "legs" individually, he builds the two legs, then straightens the entire leader out into a single line, with the butt section being on the outside ends, the tip section in the center. The Entire leader can then be twisted in a single step, before it is essentially "Folded" with the tip section in the middle, and allowed to furl.

Others, used various gearing to allow the twisting of both legs at one time. I've seen at least one method which using gears, springs, and weights, to do twisting and furling, all in one step.

Various materials can be used also, to yield different features. Different colors can be included to build-in indicator functionality. The whole taper can be shortened/steepened, say, for nymphing, to allow an indicator (yarn, or thingamabobber) to be placed at the end of the furl, and then tippet run straight from that - an excellent setup for nymphing - the furl turns over the indicator nicely, but the tippet cuts through the water and allows the nymphs to sink nicely.

To learn all about advanced leader making techniques, look no further than the Furled Leader Forum, a very small, dedicated group of furlers, eager to share their knowledge.

My personal quest has been that of furled leaders for Sub 0-wt rods. When I started looking for a material to create ultralight furled leaders for my 00wt, I decided I needed finer Mono than the 2lb I had been finding at the big5 (which was about .007 inch diameter). I have considered 7x ... But the issue is cost... There's about 90-100 feet of material in a furled leader... So it gets expensive if your source material is costly.

Of the two quilting Monofilament threads I purchased, Clear .004 and Smoke .004, I have two vastly different products (despite identical packaging).

The clear actually measures .0035 (between 7x and 8x) by my calipers and feels fairly inconsistent (like somewhat curly-Q’d... it straightens out when stretched) in the hands (single strand), and has a very low break strength - less than 1 lb.

The smoke, on the other hand feels much smoother, stronger (though I haven't break-tested it, yet, I've tied the smoke line to some Cabelas brand 6x... In 3 tests it broke the 6x tippet every time.... I may have found the worlds cheapest 6x tippet), and unsurprisingly also measures a good deal thicker (.005 - equivalent to 6x). So with that in mind, I have three different tapers made using the Clear, and one Taper using the Smoke.

Its actually quite fun, but this nylon thread is maddeningly difficult to work with for a variety of reasons. Still my failure rate hovers in the 60-70% range... considering its less than $0.20 in material per leader, I'm not losing any sleep over it.

 And then there is testing: That's the fun part!

Barbless Hooks - Why Hasn't the Market Shifted?

It seems that there is a divide, among fisher people, with fly fishers divided into 3 camps:

The always barbless: we fish barbless as much for our own sake as much as the fish's, we like hooks to come out of our own skin, as easily as they come out of the mouths of trout. We don't notice or don't care about a larger number lost fish. We never have to worry about crimping on stream; everything in the box is barbless anyway. We buy the barbless version of any hooks we can find, but end up flabbergasted when the knuckleheads working the "fly shop" at the local Bass Pro Shop insist there is no such thing as a barbless hook.

The barbless when required: we fish barbless whenever regulations call for it, but rarely if it's not required. Our fly boxes are a hodgepodge of barbed and crimped, the result of crimping on stream. It's not that we don't like barbless flies, but rather, we'll take every legal advantage we can get.

The barbed: landing fish is the ultimate goal, and while we still release our catch, we want to maximize our chances of holding it in our hands first. We know that the chances of seeing a warden checking barbs are slim to none, and we really don't believe that barbless hooks are any easier on the fish anyway. We have never deeply hooked ourselves with an errant cast.

A great deal of the best fly fishing water in this country is governed by barbless only requirements, ostensibly to ensure the safe release of trout which fall outside of harvest allotments (or the release of all fish).

Some locales have gone a step further, Alberta Canada for example, has regulations mandating barbless hooks only on all waters, regardless of species, harvest regulation, or fishing method. Even bait-fishers there have been forced to make the transition, and many have found the solution in circle hooks, which allow the deep-taking of bait, without the deep hooking of conventional single and treble barbed hooks.

Now, it seems that our fly fishing industry that seems so willing to abandon felt soles, in the name of conservation, is reluctant to embrace a transition to barbless only flies.

I've never seen a barbless fly in a fly shop, even when the shop owner advocates the use of barbless, or many of the local waters carry barbless requirements.

In addition to tying, I also buy a few flies each season from blueflycafe (there are countless other online retailers who sell flies for $.50-$1.00 each), and I have also never seen a barbless version offered in their vast selection.

In fly tying hooks, the options are a little better; Tiemco offers a few hooks in barbless (labeled BL) options, most widely available their standard dry fly hooks (100BL, 900BL), are often found alongside the standard, barbed variety. Partridge offers many barbless hooks, though they are a generally expensive option.

There may be more options out there, but it's difficult to tell, given the lack of support for barbless on the part of the retailers - and that's the disappointing part of it, in an industry that seems to be so intensely supportive of conservation efforts, there is a overall lack of support for the barbless option. I understand it from a short term perspective: you can make a barbed fly mostly barbless, but you can't go the other way around. It seems to me that anyone in the "Always Barbless" camp would obviously choose barbless variants at the point of purchase, the "Barbless when Required" camp would likely be largely indifferent, given many regularly fish regulated waters that require barbless anyway. 

But where's the leadership in the industry? Simms has effectively come out and said that our sport should shift away from felt soles in order to protect from invasives (and that they are taking the lead on that front) - why doesn't someone like Mustad, Tiemco, Gamakatsu, etc... Take the same kind of leadership role, and make a stand for barbless? More likely, it needs to be one of the major fly distributors that the fly shops purchase from - and that will have to come from the shops themselves first - and that points directly at us anglers: Are we asking for barbless as much as we should be?

Whatever the case, I'm ready for barbless hooks to become a widely available option, and eventually replaced barbed hooks altogether.