Anyone else out there crazy enough to tie your own tapered leaders ? :shock:
Truth be told (and I do not want to have a political thread) the economic downturn has hit us pretty hard. We are both fortunate to be employed with benefits, but between pay cuts - reduced hours - inflation ... things are tight.
So when I decided to jump back into fly fishing I was a bit shocked at perfection knot tapered leaders at $4 or more. And flies are now $2 versus $1.50 or $1.25ea. Yikes.
So tonite using one of those slick nail-knot tools and 5 spools of maxima leader material I tied my first leader in about 40min. Using the example in The Curtis Creek Manifesto (page 25 in my well worn copy) I tied what is basically a 4X leader at about 7ft long - that will have the final 2 - 2.5ft section (tippet) added (with a surgeons knot) when it is used. Its coiled neatly just like the ones in the colorful plastic wrappers.
I'll crank out a few more before our trip to the Little North fork of the Santiam this week end. Hopefully I'll get a few on to test the leaders out.
Truth be told (and I do not want to have a political thread) the economic downturn has hit us pretty hard. We are both fortunate to be employed with benefits, but between pay cuts - reduced hours - inflation ... things are tight.
So when I decided to jump back into fly fishing I was a bit shocked at perfection knot tapered leaders at $4 or more. And flies are now $2 versus $1.50 or $1.25ea. Yikes.
So tonite using one of those slick nail-knot tools and 5 spools of maxima leader material I tied my first leader in about 40min. Using the example in The Curtis Creek Manifesto (page 25 in my well worn copy) I tied what is basically a 4X leader at about 7ft long - that will have the final 2 - 2.5ft section (tippet) added (with a surgeons knot) when it is used. Its coiled neatly just like the ones in the colorful plastic wrappers.
I'll crank out a few more before our trip to the Little North fork of the Santiam this week end. Hopefully I'll get a few on to test the leaders out.