Rivers – French leader / longer leader set up

{{+1}}Rivers – French leader / longer leader set up{{-1}}

Please read this article in conjunction with the companion article:

Fly fishing tips

"French leader" or often called "leader to hand" came to my attention in 2009 through the competition sports fly fishing scene. At that stage I was President of Fly Fish Australia and also had the honour on being in one of its international representative teams. This technique was all the buzz and to those that had the opportunity to embrace the technique clearly regarded it as fantastic in the right water. I had certainly focused on the technique in my preparation for the 2009 Oceania's held in New Zealand but when push came to shove, for each of the waters I fished, shorter leader styles which were more appropriate.

The French leader technique was understandably developed by the French for competition fishing and has subsequently been refined by the Belgium's and others. When combined with small flies it is a great system to induce strikes by finicky fish.

In its pure form it involves casting the leader which has at the business end the finest tippet possible to land the subject fish and just one small weighted nymph. The small single fly is repeatedly changed and drifted past a target fish until a strike is induced. The casting style varies from person to person but typically involves elements from traditional casting, roll casting and water casting. A key element of the system is the incorporation of a section of coloured monofiliment line in the leader set up so as to help recognise even the smallest inquiry. Leaders need to be well treated with floatant right through to the indicator so as to minimise drag and facilitate a clean pick up.

Specialised rods have been developed for this technique. They typically are from 10 to 12 feet long and from #2 to #4 weight (with 11 feet long #3 weight being my preferred rod choice for my longer leader fly fishing). The rods have strong butt sections to allow the angler to put pressure on fish but have very fine tips to assist with casting the leaders rather than a fly line, to allow the fly fisher to feel the fly as it bumps along and to cushion the strike and run so that fish don't crack off the fine tippet.

Briefly the technique involves casting up stream at an angle and with the rod tip held relatively high to minimise contact of the leader above the indicator with the water leading (but not pulling) the natural drift of the fly or flies down. The French typically only leave the fly for 3 to 5 seconds before recasting either with the same fly or a different fly. With sensitive rods touches can often be felt but the coloured indicator in the leaders set up aids with visual detection of touches so that quick responses can be made to the smallest enquiry. Fundamental to the system is maintaining contact with the fly or flies without influencing their natural drift.

It may not be the best technique for all conditions but when the conditions are right it is deadly and from experience out-fishes all the alternative techniques. In my view the French leader technique is best suited to water from very shallow to around 1 meter deep. You can of course fish deeper water but you do get to a depth where deeper short leader (Czech nymph) techniques are better suited. Another variable that is fundamental to the technique is wind strength and direction. Because your fishing with none or little fly line out of the rod tip if the wind is in your face or from the side with any strength then its very hard to manage and cast the light mono and or fluorocarbon leader set up.

Whilst it works well on fish of all sizes I think it comes into its own as a technique for targeting small fish. With small fish it is often combined with a netting technique called "popping" fish. This involves applying just the right amount of lift to pop the fish out of the water and fly it through the air into the net which is handled more like a tennis racket than a traditional landing net. Popping of course requires good timing and reflex so you do need to practice it.

If your going to fish a French leader or any other type of long leader it's important that the connection between the fly line and the leader is as neat as possible so that the joint will pass through your rod guides smoothly. If it's not smooth then you will find that the joint gets hung up making releasing line and landing fish difficult to impossible.

French leaders were initially in the order of 4.6 to 5.5 meters long and were constructed from knotted mono or fluorocarbon to match the conditions but over time extended out to 9 or so meters. Since the technique gained popularity, particularly with competition fly fishers a number of companies have introduced manufactured leaders for French leader fly fishing. The most popular manufactured leader for French leader techniques these days is undoubtedly the Camou French leader manufactured by Hends. The range started with a camouflage style leader from 4.5 to 9 meters long and in late 2010 fluoro orange, yellow and pink leader were been added to the range. These Hends leaders are ideal for this style of fishing and the stiffness of the leader certainly adds a little comfort and even distance to my casting style.

French leader:

Is better suited to shallower and more uniform water than short line nymphing.
Evolved as a technique to fish small individual nymphs.
Leaders are generally 4.5 to 9 meters allowing the fly fisher to fish 6 to 8 meters away.
Leaders are either knotted or a combination of tapered leader or poly leader and knotted leader. The last section in the leader set up is generally a length of coloured monofilament line that is used as an indicator. Tippet thickness is the minimum size that will play the subject fish.
Only the leader is cast / roll cast and little if any fly line is outside the rod tip.
Everything outside the rod tip to within a meter of the fly is well treated with floatant.
If targeting a sighted fish try different flies until you induce a strike or spook the fish.
The fly is cast ahead and let sit for only 3 to 5 seconds before being cleanly picked up and recast.

In 2012 Fips Mouche which is the governing body for international fly fishing competitions took a decision to limit the length of leaders to twice the length of the fly rod which of course brought the use of the very long leaders to a screeching halt for competition sport fly fishers.

Prior to the rule change I often found that the very long leaders were too long to present cleanly in the windier conditions and often found myself carrying two rods. The first set up with a 9 meter leader with a further 2 meters of tippet that I happily fished when the topography was open and the wind was at my back and a second rod which had a leader and tippet of 21 feet which ironically is compliant with the new rule change.

Because I wanted to stay within the "twice the length of the fly rod" rule but still on occasions wanted the benefit of a "leader" set up beyond that length over time I came up with a solution that suites my longer leader fishing style.

The longer leader set up I settled on for nymphing rivers, and continue to use, is as follows.

Firstly it is designed for use with a 11 foot (3.35 meter) #3 weight fly rod. If your using a longer or shorter rod you should adjust the length of the section of Hends camou leader that you use in the leader from that detailed below.

The line I have settled on for my longer leader nymphing is a #1 weight Orvis Hydro Superfine forward taper fly line I chose this line, firstly because it’s dull olive in colour, which is prerequisite for a nymph line for me, and because the running line is finished the same as the forward taper and floats very well and most importantly the running line is only 0.60mm thick and 58 feet long. I have that line loaded on my reel back to front so that I fish the running line and the forward taper is connected to my backing.

That line is loaded onto a BFR 5/7 reel which many would say is better suited to a #6 weight rod. I do have smaller reels that I don't use because the slightly heavier reel helps me keep the rod tip high because it overbalances the butt of the rod. This helps a lot when your holding the tip of a rod high for a full 3 hour session.

My leader is taken from a 9 meter Hends camou leader. These leaders are constructed with a level 2 meter butt section which is .57mm thick a 2 meter tip section which is .21mm thick and a 5 meter tapered section in the middle running down from .57mm to .21mm.

What I do is first trim 4.2 meters of the thin end of the 9 meter camou leader. I put that asides as a dry fly leader. That dry fly leader is 0.35mm thick at the butt end which is ideal for a nail knot connection to my dry fly fishing fly line and drops down to 0.21mm at the business end and with the addition of 1 meter of medium weight tippet material and 1.5 meters of fine tippet gives me a 6.7 meter leader which suits my second 11 foot (i.e 3.35 meter) #3 weight river fly rod and of course complies with the Fips Mouche "twice the length of the fly rod" rule.

I then trim the next 4.2 meters from the thin end of the remainder of the 9 meter camou leader. I connect that to my fly line which is .60mm thick at the business end with a nail knot. If you have cut your dry fly leader and nymphing leader from the Hends camou leader correctly the butt end is 0.57mm thick and business end is 0.35mm thick which is ideal for the balance of the leader set up as described below.

Take two colours (that’s around 75 cm) of Cortland 0.33mm thick bi-colour orange and yellow indicator line. I like to have the orange end of the indicator closest to me and tie that to .35mm thin end of my section of Hends camou leader using a surgeons knot.

The balance of my leader is connected to the coloured indicator using 0.02mm micro ring. The coloured indicator and my tippet are connected to the micro ring using 4 turn uni knots. Allowing for the knots the coloured indicator generally finished up at around 0.60mm long.

I use a straight leader of between shogun tippet material. That can be up to 2.00 meters long.

I carry Shogun Tippet materials from 0.10mm to 0.16mm thickness and always use the thinnest I think I can get away with which is usually 0.10mm.

I coat the nail knot and back to back uni knots with Loon UV knot sense so that they all both pass comfortably and smoothly through the rod tip to ensure I can always retrieve enough line when playing a fish to get it comfortably to the net.

When social fishing the final step for me is to turn each of the tag ends of the coloured indicator into coils and then to cut those coils down to between just 1cm and 2cm long. These little coils are legal under current Fips Mouche rules and enhance the visibility of the indicator.

I don't add the coil indicator when competition fishing as the rules provide that droppers can only be included in the leader if there is a fly attached to that dropper.

I like to apply a wax based flaotant to the first 3 meters of fly line and the length of my leader right down to the bottom of my indicator two or three times during a 3 hour fishing session.

This leader set up give me a very well balanced and compliant leader that is 6.8 meters long and twice the length of my fly rod.

This is a great set up and with 3 or 4 meters of the Orvis fly line outside the rod tip it’s as close as I could find to fishing a 9 meter Camou leader. In fact in many respects, for me, this is a better set up than 9 meter Camou leader because the fly line is about 10% thicker than the butt of a 9 meter Camou leader and consequently my Orvis running line set up is easier to cast over longer distances particularly in windier conditions. Sure the 0.60mm running lime is slightly heavier than the first 3 or 4 meters of the Camou leader that I used to use, but I must say that it’s still light enough for it to be held off the water with an 11 foot rod. In faster water particularly there is very little tendency of the hang of that section of fly line pulling the fly or flies toward you particularly if your using reasonably heavy flies.

With little or no line outside the rod tip my longer leader set up allows me to fish water from relatively close to around 30 feet from where I am standing. Whilst the pure French leader system was designed for inducing strikes by putting different flies in front of targeted fish for only a few seconds and then if the fly is not taken repeating the process with a different fly or flies I prefer to in all but the clearest water to fish the full drift out including the swing. Fish will often follow the nymph right through the passage of the drift and only take the fly as it swings or rises just before you recast.

Excluding the swing and the lift because the fly or flies are drifting much more naturally, not impeded by the drag of the fly line, hits are often very quick and sharp wrist strikes are the order of the day in response to any real or perceived enquiry. Hits on the swing or lift are treated almost the opposite to the wrist strike on the main drift with it generally being a good practice to hold a little slack line in the hand and give that to the fish, when you see, feel or perceive hit, so as to encourage it to fully take the fly rather than pulling it from its lips.

With these longer leader fly-fishers can target spooky fish up to 9 meters away without spooking them as much as they would with other shorter leader forms of fly fishing. One of the benefits of reducing the propensity to spook fish is that the fly-fisher can change flies a number of times and hopefully induce a strike even if the fish is not actively feeding.

This a flexible set up and as well as being fantastic for longer leader fishing, with almost none of the Camou Leader outside the rod tip, is ideal for Czech nymphing.

When I went down the path of developing my longer leader technique incorporating the #1 weight Orvis Hydro Superfine forward taper fly line the majority of serious competition fly fishers went down the path of using silk lines. I did try a couple but found that they were hard for me to handle in wind and that the silk fly lines were very susceptible to damage on rocks and other structure. It's interesting to note that Fips Mouche have now effectively rules out the use of silk lines by deeming that a fly line must be used that has a minimum diameter of .55mm at the business end, which of course silk lines do not.

Other river fly techniques: