Leader Weight

[pedros]

I struggled somewhat on Sunday with the leader etc dragging my dry flies. The leader in question was actually a Tenkara furled leader made for nymphing. See pedrosonthefly.blogspot.com
So after some thought about using a shorter furled leader with more tippet etc, decided to order the level lines from TenkaraUSA. The theory being that more line can be held off the water.
Fortunately this theory was endorsed by the www.tenkarabum.com after I published my 'turnover woes' on the Tenkara USA forum.
So all being well, level lines should turn up today, so hope to try them Friday night. Will let you all know how they perform.

[pedros]

Level lines arrived on Thirsday, delivery from UK in under two days.
No time Friday night to try them as hoped, so early start on Saturday. Temp 0 degrees, and a frost on the ground when I arrived at the river.
Rigged the #10 level line, onto which attached a nymph under an olive patterned dry. Total cast length was made up of around 10.5' of level line, and about 6' of tippet.
The level line was tricky to cast at first, but by adapting my cast to short tippy strokes and sorting the forward stop out managed to get some decent delivery. Lifting the #10 line off the water was a cinch, and the leader weight problems from last week were quickly forgotten.
Spent two hours upstream of Llay road bridge on R&G's Alyn, and was rewarded in two hand sized trout to the nymph. Left the water after 2.5 hours fishing where the temperature had reached a heady 11 degrees and rising.
So initial verdict of theses level lines is positive although the still conditions made things appear a little too easy. Will be interesting to see how they perform with the Alyn's prevailing downstreamer.

[tenkaranewbie]

i struggled at first with the 10.5ft furled leaders.

after purchasing some of the tenkara lines form tenkara USA i seemed to have better line control.

i still can't get over the simplicity of tenkara fishing.

kind Regards
tenkaranewbie

[pedros]

With the dry you still have to get the tippet length correct. Too short and you will 'move' the dry when lifting the line off. I tend to go for an absolute minimum of 5' of tippet.

[karel]

So in terms of setup for your lines, is the following statement correct?

furled lines: dry flies mainly
light level line: dry flies and small nymphs and midges with no wind
heavy level line: normal/heavy nymphs and when windy

Tight Lines from Colorado.

[chriscreeler]

I think that's more or less it, but you should taylor things to suit the waters you fish, the circumstances, and your own inclinations. When I fish the dry fly it is usually on quite slow flat water and I use a long greased furled line which I lay on the water in conventional style. I have read that this is all wrong for tenkara, and one should use a short line and hold it all off the water, but this does not generally work for my fishing. Also. if nymphs are heavy enough and the line relatively short, their own weight allows them to be pitched out with a very light line. Having said that, most of my fishing is with fairly light nymphs and wet flies and I do as you suggest:but as Cotton says, you can fish up or down as the wind serves,then the light line would always do. Or, you may prefer the greater ease of casting of the heavy line whether there's a breeze or not, the choice is yours. Do you fish for greenbacks or other cuttroat trout? Best wishes. Chris.