Surgeons knots for building hand tied leaders, using 3 wraps for 12lb. The knots that I have used and find to be the best for my Fluro leaders and tippets include. It is fairly stiff in the larger diameters and has great turn over if the leader/tippet/lengths are balanced correctly for the fly size and conditions. Fluro is a harder, smaller diameter material than nylon or most co-polymers of equal B/S, and Fluro has excellent abrasion resistance against rocks and ice.
Most Polyleaders that I have used, have a moderate elongation factor, which helps absorb sharp spikes in the line load and protect the Fluro tippets. If the mono tippet used on a sink tip is too thick or too long, then your sink tip may have to drag the fly/mono down too depth, because of the high floatation factor of Monofilament Nylon leaders/tippets. It is equally important that the fly sinks slightly faster than your Polysink tips, which are density compensated so that the tip will sink first. The Fluro can get my flys deeper, faster, but sometimes too fast, especailly with weighted or large flys, creating too much droop if the tippet is long. I like to use these Co-polymers (Gamma), for surface use and sometimes subsurface as well, to balance the sink rate of the fly, to the sink rate of the tip bieng used.
Since then, I can't say I have had any problems that could be directly associated with the performance of my Fluro leader/tippet material or knot connections.Īs Islandguy mentioned, the Co-polymers available today, have a sound reputation as bieng dependable and having excellent performance properties, including, good shock resistance and elongation, high tensile strength, small diameter, low visibility, good turnover etc. I have used it in a wide variety of conditions and for different species as well. In the past year, I started using Frog Hair Flurocarbon. Later, I realized that my knots were not helping any and worked on taking that part out of the equation, but I still had not found a pure Fluro material that I was 100% happy with. Some of the brands I have used were not very good and I had problems.
I have worked with Fluro for the past several years, for my subsurface fishing. I have just sent 2 boxes of Snowbee's Magic Line to a very busy outfitter in BC's Cariboo region.his guides were useing Magic Line last summer for dry fishing(straight 10' lengths) they lost less fish,turned over the flies as well and had as many hook-ups. period! Too many issues with knots, line fractures,abrasion and so on.micro diameter co-polymers work best for me. As with all flourocarbon connections to other materials make sure of the knot strength and connectability. An example of useing a 14' fast sink poly tip the tippet ,for me,is usually no more than 4' long. Because the poly tips are tapered gives you the opportunity to taper your leaders if the need arises. The perfection loop is as good as it gets for such a thing. Should I be using longer tippet (or a leader) or using a surgeon's knot to connect the polyleader to the tippet? Since I was using an intermediate sinking polyleader I figured fluoro would be the way to go so that everything had some sink to it.ĭepending on the rod length you are useing will normally determine the length of the tippet and of course the sink rate of your Poly tip. The thing is I don't have a clue if this is the best way to turn my flies over. I've been using a perfection loop on the end of the polyleader to connect a couple feet of tippet and everything seems to be turning over properly for me. Ok, so I have some Snowbee 16' polyleaders (floating, intermediate, fast).