[t_richerzhagen]

There have been a number of threads with people having some trouble with poly leaders.

Is there a common reason for failure?

I use the Airflow salmon, not the heavy salmon. They are supposed to have a 24 # nylon core. I put a non-slip loop in the end, then a non-slip loop in 15 # Maxima and a double surgeons's knot to the tipit. I have snagged bottom and had the 15# Maxima fail before the poly leader. That should be adequate for anything we are going to flyfish for, short of kings.

Do some of these fail because of bad knots, or since they have a nylon core, do they age and fail? If we store them in the dark at reasonable temperatures they should take a long time to break down.

 

[beau purvis]

polyleader

i used the regular salmon for 1yr without changing my nonslip loop. finaly changed to the extra strong version in the middle of my Dean trip this yr. for no reason .never had a problem .just seemed prudent.
beau

 

[Barry]

Just busted one

I just popped 10' intermediate poly leader last week. :eyecrazy:
It busted about a foot from the end on the tippet side. I think some rocks may have weakened it as the break was quite frayed. Since I was far from a fly shop at the time I just checked the rest of the poly leader and tied a perfection loop at the end. I threw a new piece of tippet on the end and it's still working. So now its a 9 footer..............But it still works.

Barry

 

[flysully]

My buddy and I purchased four intermediate Airflo polyleaders for saltwater albie fishing in MVineyard a month or so ago. We've used Airflo's poly leaders consistently since they were introduced with no problem. The leader I had had on was three years old and I just decided to put on a new one for my albie trip. Both my and my buddy's leader snapped mid leader with an albie hookup during the trip. Upon reading other comments on this thread, I've decided to return the two damaged polyleaders with a note describing the failure, thinking that possibly this could be a bad batch. I really can't see a leader failing in two weeks fishing when the older ones have given me good service for three years. Will post comments if/when I receive them.

 

[t_richerzhagen]

Which leader?

Which leader were you using, salmon, saltwater, or heavy salmon. The salmon certainly should not have failed, unless you were using a very heavy tippet.

It dows sound like a bad batch of leaders.