I've used the hand tied leaders from W.W. Doak's in Doaktown, NB for years. I think they charge $5.95 CND for them. Last time I checked only up to 12' though.
The late Gary Selig made the best spey leaders, but obviously no longer available.
Personally, I like the proper hand tied Maxima tapered leaders.
No, haven't missed anything, that's exactly what they are. Doak's does it with
no tag ends on the blood knot and some sort of coat on the knot so they're relatively smooth through the guides--at least as smooth as they can be.
I've used hand tied Maxima leaders for surface/near surface fishing for many many years.
Usually 15' long tied to a formula of 65% strength, 15% taper, 25 % tippet.
For sinking flies I use a 40" 15 lb Maxima no taper leader.
Jerry Doak (W W Doak) will tie you a 15 foot leader like the ones SalmonCane is talking about. I buy them one size larger tippett than I need then tie on about 4 feet tippett. Works great. He has a way of tying the knots so they are very smooth. They're not on his website but he will tie them.
Full float - from 1 rod length to 1.5 rod lengths
Intermediate + float - from 3/4 rod length to 1 rod length
Full intermediate - 3/4 to 1/2 rod length
Full sinking - no more than 3 to 4 feet
I'm a big fan of those old AFS heads, I have a bunch of them and use them often ... brilliant lines :smokin:
I know many east coast salmon anglers that prefer to buy hand tied leaders rather than the tapered leaders.
They will replace a tippet section but as far as the leader goes, they rather not get into buying all the different diameters of mono.
Been rolling my own since the 1970's. Over the years I've seen a variety of recipes and equations but I just sit there with several spools of Maxima and simply assemble what looks good to me. Something like 40, 30, 20, 15, 12, 10, and maybe down to 8 lb with the Spey rods. Sometimes I leave droppers and fish multiple flies. To lazy to sit there with a calculator and tape measure just to get a fly in the water. Normally carry a spare in my wallet for that rare instance where I might hang the whole unit up in a tree.
Only had that happen once when I was fishing a daisy chain of 3 flies. Put it all together and the whole mess got entangled in some dead limbs tight to the bank on the first cast. A bit miffed when I had to leave 3 flies up there that had never been wet. Had it been a live tree, I would have scrambled up and maybe whittled off a limb or two. Being dead and overhanging the water, I didn't want to risk a 20 ft fall into the run. The flies were up there for years until wildfire a couple years back took out the tree.
Years back a tech rep I encountered on the river gifted me multiple spools of some ultra thin material. I lost about 5 fish to hard hits that day and examinations and tests in camp revealed my knots were slipping. Nice curly cues on the end when I reeled things in. I normally put about 5 turns on each tag, wet the knot, snug things up, and trim the tags. With the thinner material, it took about 7 turns for the knots to hold, and I had issues getting the turns to stack neatly. Went back to my Maxima and the skinny stuff landed in the dumpster the next morning.
Lifetime, about 99% of my leaders have been self-tied. I rather enjoy designing and tying my leaders (it's an easy use of hands while watching tv), and being mildly obsessive, I want to have just the right fly tackle for the situation of the moment. I have a half-dozen leader wallets, with written formulas and color-coded identifications (thread wraps) for each pocket, which usually holds three identical leaders. I'll have at least two wallets with me on every outing.
I'm not sure- it sounds from the responses, most who value them tie them themselves. (I do, too). I do like them better than poly's or knotless, so I think that if you can convince people fo their value beyond what is available, you may find/build a market.
With poly leaders costing $12-$15, I'd think $10 or $12 might be a good starting point. With a tippet ring, I'd think they'd potentially last as long as a poly.
I always used leaders that I tied myself. However the store bought tapered leaders have become so much better than they used to be - longer stiffer butt sections of suitable diameter - they give me good fly turn over when casting a floating line. So I'm not in the market to buy hand tied tapered leaders these days. Thanks.
Being a true speypager I didn't address the questioned asked. Yes I think there's a market for hand tied leaders, especially if no one on the west coast sells them.
Best Iv found is 12 ft or 15 ft bought tapered mono leader, tie on tippet ring at the tippet end, then attach 5ft tippet material, at couple pounds lighter breaking strain.
Eg, 15ft tapered leader ending in 24lb tippet, then tie tipet ring,, and 5ft 20lb tippet material. Either fluro or mono..
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