Posted on April 26 2011
A few months ago, we ran a video featuring Bruce Chard that detailed his approach to tying leaders for flats fishing. If you fish on the flats, you really need to check out the video – we’ll give you another chance with a link right here.
The foundation of Bruce’s leaders is Rio’s Alloy Hard leader material
. This stuff is very stiff, super abrasion-resistant nylon monofilament. Since going to school via Bruce’s video, we’ve been fishing lots of leaders made of Alloy Hard mono, and we like it a lot. If you haven’t tried it already, we think you should.
Here’s why.
- Its stiffness (it’s much stiffer than extruded knotless leaders) allows it to turn over big flies much easier. We fish big flies at Andros South – and flimsy tippet material doesn’t turn them over so well.
- Its stiffness make the leader turn over much straighter than other saltwater leaders. This results in more accurate presentations, and less slack in the leader when the fly its the water – the time from ‘fly lands’ to ‘fly is being presented well’ is much shorter.
- Its stiffness (are you noticing a pattern here?) means that you can fish longer leaders with ease. Our very non-scientific guess is that a 12 foot Alloy Hard leader turns over about as easily as a 9 foot leader made of conventional mono. Our bonefish on South Andros are not very spooky, but if you can easily fish a longer leader, why not do it?
Check it out – we think you’ll like it.
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