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SpokaneDude

Do bass rigs (lines) using furled leaders use a tippet?

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Doing some research for what I need to get for Bass fishing in a local lake; for what I've read so far, I see only fly line and leader, no mention of using a tippet. Is this the way to fish bass? If so, how do I attach the hook to the leader? Somehow I can't believe what I am reading... and are ALL lines for bass fishing floating lines?

 

SD

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I can only report on my own experiences. And I am only talking about fishing for Largemouth Bass ... not Smallmouth.

 

1) I always fish floating lines. Not so much because I am bass fishing, but because I don't like fishing deep with a fly rod. If I have to go deeper than 6 feet or so, I'm switching to bait casters or spinning rigs. I also only fish shoreline cover. I don't like casting to open water, I like targets along the bank. So most of my fishing in in less than 6 feet.

 

2) All of my bass set-ups have 14 pound test from fly line to fly, no leader. First, because LMB aren't as line shy as I've heard other fish can be. Second, I'm often fishing cover, and anything lighter than 14 pounds is more apt to be broken off in branches, etc.

 

3) I don't use furled leaders, so I'm assuming you'd need at least a few feet of 12 or 14 lb. test "tippet" just for, as you say, "tying on the fly".

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I use furled leaders when I'm fishing for bass, both largemouth and smallmouth. Yes, I use a tippet with it. Normally 5 to 6 feet of fluorocarbon, ranging from 12 to 25 lb test. The leaders, I have three or four of them are made from thread. They are 4 to 6 feet long. I didn't make them. I swapped materials and flies for them with someone on one of the boards I'm on. Might have been this one. I treat them with floatant. I prefer fishing top water for bass, so I do use a WFF line with them. Depending on the situation, I'll use other lines. I have two spare spools for my 6 wgt. One has an intermediate sinking line and the other a sink tip line. With the intermediate line, I use a hand twisted fluorocarbon leader, 5 feet long plus 5 feet of tippet. With the sinking line I use a 5 to 7 foot piece of fluorocarbon as the "leader", no tippet.

All my connections are loop to loop. All my fly lines have loops on the end of them. The furled and twisted leaders have loops at both ends. A loop to loop connection of fly line to leader, and then a loop to loop connection of leader to tippet. If I'm using just a straight piece of fluorocarbon, a loop to loop connection to the fly line. A bit complicated.

To answer your last question. Not all bass lines are floating. What line you use is situational and preferential. Unlike, Mike, I'm willing to use a sinking line, but it's situational. The only time I really do that is on a lake I go to in Northern Ontario where I cast to shore structure around islands and rock piles, but the water drops off quickly to 10 or 15 feet.

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You might benefit from what we call a "poor boy" leader setup. We use it a lot in the Everglades working brackish and salty areas where we're doing mostly the same things that bass fishermen do... It starts with a butt section permanently spliced onto the end of the fly line with a nail knot (or any knot that it small and strong and able to slide in and out of the tip top without hanging up... For a six or seven wt. rod we're using about four feet of 30 lb mono for that butt section... for an 8 or 9 wt rod we go up to 40lb and the butt is 4 to 4.5 feet long... Every butt section ends in a surgeon's loop. The "poor boy" is simply a four or five foot section of straight non- tapered leader with a surgeon's loop on one end and the fly tied to the other... Where we are, the poor boy is fluorocarbon leader material and we normally use 20lb (fishing mangrove jungle shorelines is very hard on leaders). All of the structure we work near is encrusted with barnacles or oyster shells that have razor sharp edges the fish love to hang around -when they're not on top of or next to oyster bars...

 

The poor boy and the butt section are looped to loop together for a leader that's about the length of a nine foot fly rod and we take multiple different species from small tarpon to snook (and everything in between...) with it. Mostly our connections to the fly or popping bug use very small loop knots (the improved Homer Rhode loop knot...). We're gambling a bit with this setup since some fish really do need bite tippets ( a short trace, less than 12 " of heaver leader next to the fly) to keep from being frayed off... but we do get a lot more bites with it so it's definitely my first choice unless I know we're going to be hooking much bigger fish....

 

Changing out leaders is simply a matter of either cutting off the fly or popper being used then tying on another selection - or un-looping the poor boy and replacing it with another one entirely... all very handy and quick to do...

 

Hope this helps.

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I use Furled leaders made out of either 10 or 14 lb mono. I twist these leaders to about 5-6 feet. I tie my leaders so there is a loop in each end for easy connecting. I dont use a tippet ring. On the tippet end of the leader, I use an 8-14 lb mono tippet about 3.5-4 feet long. If I am fishing subsurface flies, I switch to fluro in the same weights. Like someone said above, Bass and Bream aren't as spooky of leaders as trout can be.

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My standard setup for largemouth and smallmouth bass is a floating line with a 7'6" leader tapered to 2X at the terminal end. To that I'll add a foot of either 2X or 3X tippet. That gives me a leader just shy of 9 feet long that will turn over good sized streamers or topwater bugs quite well.

 

A simple way to make a very serviceable leader is to start with a heavy butt section (Capt. Bob's guidelines of 30 lb. for 6-7 wt. lines, or 40 lb. for 8-9 wt. lines are spot on) that is half the length of what you want the total leader length to be. Then you step down in 5-pound test increments, making each of the remaining sections of leader half the length of the one that came before it, until you get to what will be the tippet section. The tippet you make long enough to finish out however long you want the finished leader to be, and go fishing. So, for example, a 6' leader that I like for fishing larger flies goes like this:

 

30 lb. - 36"

20 lb. - 18"

15 lb. - 18"

 

I've pretty much given up building my own leaders for bass, though, because the knots joining each section (I use blood knots) tend to catch and hold a lot of algae and assorted "pond snot". smile.png

 

Scientific Anglers and Umpqua both make leaders designed for bass, too.

 

Hope this helps.

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I think your being to literal. My simplistic approach is the tippet is just the tip of the leader opposite the butt end. It's added onto on an as needed basis. Call it leader, tippet, or whatever the tippet is simply the small end of the leader.

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My leader is similar to Bryons I use about 3 ft of 20lb Mason hard mono 2 or 3 ft of 20lb maxima, then 2 ft of 12 lb vanish if I have it. I like the regular fishing floro better than the fly fishing tippets I've had it seems have much better knot strength and hold up a bit better to abuse.

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Do bass rigs (lines) using furled leaders use a tippet?

 

yes they do

 

you need to add a section of "tippet" to either the loop, tippet ring or swivels ends of the furled leader. then attach the fly to the "tippet"

 

loop-down.jpg

 

however you can also use a standard packaged straight tapered leader. the smallest end is referred to as the "tippet" end

 

from the internet

 

There are three basic parts to a tapered leader: the butt section, tapered section, and the tippet. The butt section makes up 60% of the leader length and is made of larger stiffer diameter material. This section starts the transfer of energy from the fly line into the leader.

The mid section (20% of the leader length) is made up of short, graduated strands of monofilament stepping down quickly in diameter. It dissipates the energy transferred from the fly line to allow a gentle presentation.

The final section, the tippet, is made of softer smaller diameter material which enables the fly to to set gently down and ride the current in an unrestricted manner as possible.

tapered.jpg

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Thanks for the info Flytire... as a saltwater fly angler I know we're a lot cruder operation than freshwater types use daily. Interesting to see what I'm missing... but once you have the salt taste it's hard to shake...

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In the OP the key is "furled leader", so yes it has to have something added on. I can't make myself believe in furled leaders and do about what Bryon suggests except I use 20# + 15# + 8# tippet for a total of about rod length I can then tie on a couple more smaller pieces and this becomes a trout leader.

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Thanks for the info Flytire... as a saltwater fly angler I know we're a lot cruder operation than freshwater types use daily. Interesting to see what I'm missing... but once you have the salt taste it's hard to shake...

I'd considered using my heavy thread furled leaders for salt water, but I kept having visions of a bluefish grabbing it instead of the fly. I saw an article in one of the fly fishing magazines on the twisted leader and decided to give them a try. I was surprised when it turned over my flies without a problem.

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