Fly Fishing Leaders
There are many leader formulas to be found in the fly-fishing community, and the following is one that was given to me by my friend Mr. Ramón Aranguren, a past Argentinean fly-casting champion. I have used this leader formula over the years, and it has also worked well for many of my fly fishing associates. This leader has a long stiff butt section that will turn over those big bushy dry flies, weighted nymphs, steelhead flies, and will help you to drive a fly into the wind. I call it the 60/40 and here are a couple formula variations of it for different fly-fishing situations.
First, take a piece of notebook paper and draw an 8-inch line. This will be used for writing down your marks and figures for the layout of the 60/40 tapered fly-leader and should be saved for future reference. Starting from left to right at the 5″ point or about 60 %, make a short vertical line that is above and below line. Therefore, everything to the left of this vertical line will be the butt section or 60 percent and everything to the right of the vertical line will be the tippet section or 40 percent of the 8″ line.
Lets say you want to make a 9 ft. leader or 108″: Take 60 % of 108 and you get about 65″, that is how long the butt section will be, so write 65″ above the 8″ line and left of the vertical line on the paper. The butt section will consist of two sections. Take 60 % of 65″ and you get 39″; this is the length of the first butt section, which will be, .019″ diameter leader material. Make a short vertical line below the 8″ line to separate these two sections. The second section is 65 minus 39 or 26″ of, .018″ diameter leader material. Write down these figures under the line on your paper for the 1st and 2nd butt sections.
The tippet section is also broken down into the 60/40 formulas: Subtract 65 from 108 and you get 43″. This is the tippet section; so write 43 above the line on the right side of the vertical mark on your paper; this is 40 % of the line. Now take 60 % of 43 and you get approximately 27″, which is the length of the first section of the tippet section. Mark this with a short vertical line below the 8″ line. The first section will be divided into three 9″ pieces of leader material .015″ diameter, .014″ diameter and .012″ diameter. Write in these figures under the 8″ line for reference. The second section is the tippet, which will be 17″ of .010″ diameter Write these figures under the 8″ line. If needed, you can add extra length to the tippet, or tie on an additional 20″ of a smaller size tippet if so desired.