When I read the formulas from the guys who really know, I understand that I am just scratching the surface. Read about Chico’s bonefish leader philosophy and you start to understand what sort of depth you can get to when you spend a LOT of time on the water.
You can watch Bruce Chard tie up a bonefish leader and hear him share his thoughts as well.
All of that seems complicated and that’s why I settled on the formula I have used to this point which involves a 50/25/25 formula. I don’t know where I saw this, but I know it was the simplest and I seized upon it for that very reason. Let me be frank here, I will not make any claims about this being the best or most effective or about it working particularly well. I tie this because it is easy and I am lazy.
Reading Chico’s thoughts I’m breaking several rules of leader design. I’d likely be ashamed to show my leaders to anyone who actually knows what the hell they are doing, but I’m also nagged by the strange knowledge that those leaders have worked for me. I go 40#, 30#, 20# and then some #15 floro tippet and it shouldn’t turn over, but it does and every bonefish I’ve caught in the past 3 years has been caught on a hand tied leader with that formula. I’m not sure if I need to step my game up here, or if I should just leave well-enough alone.
Do you tie your own leaders? If so, what formula do you use?
Oh yeah, and most of my leader material is cheap, too (not including the tippet).
