Tips and Tricks- Bonefish/Permit Leaders

It's getting to be the time of year when people are getting ready to go on their saltwater trips. 

Here's a couple suggestions for your leaders for 

Bonefish and Permit:

- Most of the leader manufacturers offer fluorocarbon saltwater leaders, for  Bonefish and Permit. You're best to stay away from the fluorocarbon leader. Why? Because one of the properties of fluoro is it's higher density. A fluorocarbon leader will sink horizontally, leading to the fly keeling on the bottom instead of "hopping" off the bottom on each strip. This will lead to numerous bottom and grass hookups, and snags, as well as a ton of spooked fish.

- Use a monofilament saltwater leader and replace the tippet (front 20-24") with fluorocarbon. This will fish the fly properly and give you the abrasion resistance at the tippet that you need.

The above drawing shows (top) how a mono leader/fluoro tippet will fish on the flat. The fly will pop off the bottom on strips. The bottom drawing shows how a full fluoro leader will sink. As the leader is horizontal on the bottom, the fly will drag, leading to spooked fish and snagged flies.

- Why should I use a saltwater leader? Why not freshwater stuff? The answer is simple, saltwater leaders have longer, stiffer butt sections and they are way easier to turn over in a flats environment.

- Should I make my own leaders? Certainly, most of us here at the shop build our own leaders for Bonefish and Permit. As long as you use clear, stiff, monos like Ande. If you're keen on building your own leaders, we have bulk spools of Ande Monofilament here at the shop and we can show you the proper tapers for either Bonefish or Permit.

 

- What length of leader should I use? For Bonefish, 10-12 foot leaders will cover pretty much anything you might encounter Bonefishing. To make things simple, we recommend the 10 foot, 12 pound Bonefish leaders. As they are mono leaders, you just add about 20-24" of fluorocarbon tippet on the end and you have a perfect Bonefish leader.

For Permit, accuracy is paramount. This is why we always recommend to people heading off to go Permit fishing that they use nothing longer than 10 foot leaders. Anything longer and the denser, heavier Permit flies can be a real challenge to turn over. Nothing more frustrating than a 12 foot leader that you can't turn over on a 60 foot cast to the Permit shot of your dreams. 10 foot!
In our opinion, the best setup for Permit is a 10 foot, 16 pound saltwater leader (mono). Cut the front 24" off the leader and replace with 16 pound Flourocarbon. (12 or 14 pound tippet may be required in certain locations and situations).
 
- What knot should I use for tying leaders? Tippets? We always tell people to use the knot they are comfortable tying and have confidence in. Having said that, we tie all of our own leaders, from butt to tippet, with Blood Knots. Even the tricky mono to fluoro connection. Your blood knots should have at least five wraps each way on the blood knot for mono to mono. We do 5 wraps on the mono side and 6 wraps on the fluoro side for mono to fluoro connections.