This is the tippet material I recommend using to construct your nymphing leaders. Umpqua and Rio are pretty much the only brands that offer this range of tippet size making it perfect for building your own tapered leaders. Thanks to Fishwest you can get what you need online. The art of building leaders has kind of gone away. I feel it is necessary for success when nymphing deep water.
You can buy a leader building kit, but you will find that you may not use the smaller sizes like 6X, 7X, and 8X. I don’t think there are many situations that would call for it. There are fly fisherman out there who would argue, but I haven’t found a scenario where it was absolutely essential. You might save a little bit of money by starting out with the kit.
Click to buy the Leader Tying Kit
When you run out of a certain tippet size (You will run out of 2X 3X 4X and .010X the most) you can replace individual spools without having to buy an entire kit. Fishwest is the only local fly shop that carries the entire range of tippet online. To construct a leader properly you will want to have a minimum of 8 sections. The more the better, there are 11 total that you can buy. The tippet sizes you will want to properly construct a nymphing leader are:
.010X (40 lb)
.08X (35 lb)
.06X (30 lb)
.05X (25 lb)
.04 X (20 lb)
.02X (16 lb)
0X (15 lb) *You can leave this size out if you want to.
1X (13.5 lb)
2X (10.7 lb)
3X (8.5 lb)
4X (6 lb)
Click to buy Umpqua Tippet Spools
The other day one of my students showed up to class with the full range of Rio tippet. I haven’t had the opportunity to use Rio as of yet but I definitely plan on it when the opportunity arises. One nice thing about Rio tippet is that it goes all the way up to 60lb. That will be great so that I can tie better leaders for salmon in Alaska. Using Umpqua I was only able to have about 6 sections, with Rio I will be able to get the 8 that I feel is the minimum for an effective leader.
Click to buy Rio Tippet Spools
I can honestly say I’ve never seen a leader tying kit. That’s interesting. I might be visiting SLC this July. You got any tips for me? I’ll be in Ogden for a few days too.
Machine tapered leaders weren’t available until the mid 80′s so traditionally fly fisherman would construct their own. I like to do it for performance reasons when nymphing. I find machine tapered leaders do not provide the rigidity to make effective strikes on fish. Plus you end up saving money in the long run if you build your own. I also know of “dry fly” fisherman who will only use constructed leaders. Most of them tie the Harvy Slack Leader. It is designed to help reduce micro drag. Anyway, if your going to be near Ogden in July, you should try some night fishing for Hog Browns on the Weber river. Or, if you can, get up into the Uintahs!
I’ve heard about the Uintas they seem awesome. I don’t know how much time I’ll have to actually fish. The main reason for the trip is my wife’s family reunion.
Well if you don’t have a lot of time, then you will want to hit up the Ogden River. It flows right through Ogden. It was just declared a blue ribbon fishery. I haven’t fished it myself but I have heard it has a healthy fish count. The state has taken a lot of measures to clean it up and I hear it fishes really well.