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polyleaders for riffling hitch and dry fly fishing

Why we use polyleaders for riffling hitch and dry fly fishing

Sinking poly leaders are the best for wake, dry fly and riffling hitch fishing…

The leader is an extension of your fly line.

The link between our fly line and fly is essential to our casting and presentation skills, and the choice of leader and tippet material is often debated among anglers.

For more than one reason, sinking poly leaders fit perfectly into the world of surface fishing, and I will try to highlight some of the reasons why.

Sinking polyleaders are the best leader for wake, dry fly and riffling hitch fishing…

airflo polyleader til riffling hitch

We know that recommending sinking leaders for surface fishing is a somewhat controversial and bold statement – never the less that is what we believe. We readily use poly leaders in our fishing… with great success.

Go to our poly leaders for riffling hitch

The leader is an extension of your fly line

The link between our fly line and fly is of great importance to our casting and presentation skills and choice of leader and tippet material is often debated among anglers.

For more than one reason sinking polyleaders fit perfectly into the world of surface fishing and I will try to highlight some of the reasons why.

casting with fly line and big flies

POWER IN CASTING

The density of the polymer leaders will aid you in turning over big wake and dry flies in windy conditions. The greater density of the polymer leader will also help you to cast straight and precisely when using a long line.

leaders casting shadow

AVOID SHADOWS AND DISTURBANCE WITH SINKING LEADERS… 

Our favoured polymer leaders are all slow sinking – We prefer these leaders to those leaders that float because the submerged leader casts less of a shadow that may frighten the fish – The submerged leader also causes less disturbance on the surface (drag) and won’t sink too far down to make the fly drown.

images

POLYMER LEADERS WILL ATTRACT MORE FISH…

This is obviously an expression of views/facts that we have little solid verification of – in fact, it is not the polymer leader in itself that would attract the fish – but the delicate and quite  dynamic polymer leader will be able to transform some of the many fine swirls and curls of the river surface to micro-movements * in your leader and finally your fly – something quite useful when you target fish with micro flies such as riffling hitch and other such miniature flies

* Turn a heavy line…into something much better

In line with our thoughts and experience with small flies and the movements they should/could have at the end of the tippet material – we do recommend that you use polyleaders if you intend to use such small patterns on big rods with ditto heavy lines. Heavy lines like; Short Scandi shooting heads – Skagit lines and even some full Spey lines in # 9 – 11 may be great for distance casting but some of these line designs could also turn into all too stiff and rigid fishing gear with an inadequacy to follow the many fine hurls and swirls of the river surface – water movement that we believe to be important in our fishing with smallish surface flies.

polyleaders for riffling hitch and dry fly fishing

Jesper is the chief designer and fly tier at Fishmadman - He also does most of our writing on the Fishmadman pages and Newsletter

Top-water fishing is his sport and as an outdoor writer he has been writing articles on this subject in magazines and books in Europa and North America sins the early 80´s.

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