Leaders for Bass

Whats the point of the leader? well, the leader connects to the fly line and connects to the fly. Without it, you can't fish. Simple yes and no. When going for bass it is essential that you are using the right leader.

Yard for yard and foot for foot they are some of the most expensive mono on the planet. You can buy 100 yards of 10lb average quality mono for $4.00 and even cheaper if you shop around.

Fly line leader "9' super duper gotta have it" can cost you $7.00 and up. Me I buy mine for $3.50 and less on the net.

300 feet $4.00

9 feet $3.00 - what ever they can get you to spend.

The only thing more expensive is "Beef Jerky" I know I buy that too.

It's monofilament folks. As I see it you have two choices - "buy em" or "make em" check this out. Leaders come in several types, but the two that I use are:

knotless tapered, have to buy this one.

and

knotted compound-tapered, I can make this one.

Whats the difference?

knotless is just what it says no knots. It is one strand of tapered mono tapered from one end to the other.

Knotted compound-tapered is strands of mono tied together to form a length of leader.

Is one better than the other. That's a hard question. Because............ The knotless leader tends to be the most trouble, free leader.

The one thing I do when I but one is, say I buy a 9' knotless 3x I cut off the last 18" or so and tie on my own 3x tippet. This way when I change flies I'm cutting into my added tippet, not shortening my $4.50 knotless.

If you do this you can get a more useful life from your leader. Also, you can tie on 2x - 4x depending on what size hook you want to fish.

You can also cut back and add on 0x - what ever and make your own leader to fish a little heavy.
This brings me to my second choice, the knotted leader. This leader can cause you a little more trouble.

The knots can get caught on the rod guides and get caught on weeds and such in the water.
What I like about the knotted leader is that I can experiment with different leader tapers on the water.

I make up some leaders at home, change em up on the water. I don't know about you but I tend to fish with my leader way past the guides and the weeds are part of Bass fishing.

If the weeds bother you maybe your fly rod should stay away from Bass.

I've been experimenting with several types of leader taper. I have found that a 60/20/20 and 50/30/20 combo taper works great for Bass. What are these numbers? Glad you asked.

60% - 20% - 20% means percentage of leader length

At 60/20/20 say I wanted a 9' 6lb tippet (4x) I would make my leader like this:

9' =108'' so it would look like this - 65/21/21 inch pieces tied together.

65" @ x1 tippet at 15lb test, 21" @ 2x tippet 10lb test and 21" @ 4x tippet 6 lb test tippet!

These are for 5/6 wt rods and wt forward line.

This is my favorite combo for bass. I know someone is going to take me to task because they read that if you make your own leader you need to make it with at least 4 - 5 and 6,7 sections to get a ultra smooth taper contour and maximum energy transfer. All true.

A leader that is made from stiff material will transmit more energy than a leader made from soft pliable material. Large diameter material will hold more energy than small diameter material.

The tippet is the most important part of a leader. This combination will deliver a fly with authority. My designs are made with a stiff butt section and a medium middle and medium tippet. 60% butt 20% middle and 20% tippet.


Butt section: Maxima hard mono for energy transfer

middle/Tippet section:

Umpqua medium mono for middle/tippet for laying down the fly
Sometimes I use maxima for Butt/midd for a harder fly landing (Remember Bass)

A fishing buddy reminded me that Bass will eat what would scare the crap out of a trout. And force it to move to the next river.

But and this is a big but:

Remember this we are fishing for Bass and this taper combo gets the fly out there from heavy to light. These aren't trout were after. We want to punch out the taper to 20'+

A three section taper on 60/20/20 is fine. Don't worry about leader hinge.

The contour is:

.012 -.009 - .007 smooth enough for Bass. Beside with this taper you can build taper on the water from ox - 5x for big Bass poppers to Light Cahills sz 14-16s

Which brings me to my last point:

These are for fishing a 5/6 wt rod wt/f floating line. Probably not the only combination but the one I fish.

Tight lines till next time