Intro and leader question

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sldrose
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:23 am

Intro and leader question

Post by sldrose » Sat Feb 04, 2017 8:02 am

Hi all,

I'm Sean, an aussie living in Canada for the last 5 years.

I'm visiting the south Isl in April (6-16th) for my 3rd fishing trip to your great Country.

Just thought i'd introduce myself and reach out for any tips and advice.

My last 2 trips were down in Southland and fishing the Mataura, Waikaia, Oreti.
First trip was great, and we had good weather.
Second trip rained out and the rivers were blown. It forced us into Mavora lakes and lake TeAnau.

I booked guides for a couple of days both times, some good, some bad, some hampered by weather.

This trip I'm looking to explore the Westcoast and Nelson regions.

I've caught my share of small fish <4.5lb and Sight fishing for large browns is what I am after.
Looking to get into fish better than 4.5lb.

I've been watching Mike Kirkpatrick vids for inspiration
(tried to book him, but he isn't available)

Also, I'm reluctant to book any other guides as i've been disappointed before. (guide had me blindfishing all day)

Also I don't want to book so far in advance that I don't know what the weather will be doing.

So my leader question is to those of you who use a poly leader in your construction.
(tried searching the forum but couldn't find anything)

found this on old forum from kiwiboy back in 2010, but cant find him to PM him.
I'm with Andy, I havent had problems with them spooking fish although I too add a tapered leader to the end of an 8ft floating. I have a few reels so tend to connect my poly leaders and tapered leaders permanantly with a braid "sleeve" as opposed to an eye which help me wind all the way through the guides without any resistance or added bulk. Also helps when a fish runs and your joins on the reel....nothing to catch and break off that nice shiny tip ring.

An 8ft poly, 9 ft tapered and 3 ft tippet keeps my fly line miles from fish and can turn over in wind.

We dont actually tie the mono out of the poly leader to the tapered leader, we join it with a braid sleeve made up from unwaxed braid. we slide the 2cm long sleeve over both the poly leader (plastic outter coating) and the butt section of the tapered leader with both sections meeting in the middle of the 2cm long sleeve. Both ends of the sleeve where the leaders entre are bound with tying thread and glued, the middle of the braid sleeve where the lines touch is also bound. This creates a smooth permanant joint. We do the same from fly line to polyleader.
If anyone can help me with this type of setup, that would be great.
Are you using a pike or salmon floating polyleader to avoid the stepdown to 12lb step up to 40lb butt on the tapered leader problem??
and how does the braided join work, can anyone point me to a youtube vid?

Also, I have a pretty good idea of the rivers I want to fish, but i'd buy a buy a beer and parma for anyone who is willing to meet up and share some local knowledge.
(as in, don't fish there, impassable gorge etc.)

sorry about the long post

cheers
Sean



sldrose
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:23 am

Re: Intro and leader question

Post by sldrose » Sat Feb 04, 2017 8:10 am

my adopted home, Alberta Canada
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Eric_the_king
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2016 6:29 pm

Re: Intro and leader question

Post by Eric_the_king » Tue Feb 07, 2017 7:01 am

With regards to guides you should try Anton Donaldson www.nztroutadventures.com. I was put onto him by Mike Kirkpatrick as Mike himself was unavailable. He was excellent and I can highly recommend him.



sldrose
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:23 am

Re: Intro and leader question

Post by sldrose » Tue Feb 14, 2017 5:31 am

Eric_the_king wrote:
Tue Feb 07, 2017 7:01 am
With regards to guides you should try Anton Donaldson www.nztroutadventures.com. I was put onto him by Mike Kirkpatrick as Mike himself was unavailable. He was excellent and I can highly recommend him.

Thanks Eric, i'll check him out



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fraser hocks
Posts: 915
Joined: Sat May 10, 2014 3:25 pm
Location: Queenstown

Re: Intro and leader question

Post by fraser hocks » Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:00 am

If anyone can help me with this type of setup, that would be great.
Are you using a pike or salmon floating polyleader to avoid the stepdown to 12lb step up to 40lb butt on the tapered leader problem??
and how does the braided join work, can anyone point me to a youtube vid?
Hummm Id have to say no! :lol: cant say any of us here are using 12lb to catch trout. Sounds somewhat similar to what you would use in the saltwater but way too heavy for the fresh here in NZ.

Personally I use just the regular loop to loop connection for flyline to a standard tapered mono leader for my 6# setup as thats the outfit I drop to if the wind really gets up or a river is blown and I need to swing streamers ets.. that way I can swap between a floating mono leader and sinking poly leaders in a jiffy, streamside.

For 90% of my work I use a 3# - 5# rod and with those I use the superglue knot to attach my leader to the flyline and then micro rings for attaching the tippet. They really extend the life of the leader, also I believe that the join is far stronger than joining the end of the leader to the tippet with a double uni of surgeons knot etc...

I use one of these little handy gadgets for tying the superglue knot http://www.flyshop.co.nz/BASK.html

A very neat and tidy way off attaching the leader to the flyline. Also means that the join goes through the rod guides with ease. ;)


Bucking trends in fly fishing since 1970!

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SteveO
Posts: 37
Joined: Sat May 10, 2014 4:44 pm
Location: New Plymouth

Re: Intro and leader question

Post by SteveO » Wed Feb 15, 2017 8:56 am

Poly leaders are used in New Zealand and they do help with stepping down from your fly line to smaller Mono. They can turn over quite a remarkable piece of level mono which i finish with a tippet ring. The level section is great for putting a sliding indicator on and from the tippet ring you can add or subtract tippet with out losng your base set up. The sliding indicator allows for super quick depth adjustment. Regards Steve



sldrose
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:23 am

Re: Intro and leader question

Post by sldrose » Tue Oct 17, 2017 5:00 am

Hi all,

It's been 6 months since I got back to Canada after 10 days on the South Island (Apr 6 to 16)
I have to admit we got our butts kicked by NZ.

There was a storm system that brought heavy rain 6 out of the 10 days we were there.
We kept trying to move south to get clear of it, but I think we ended up stuck in the heaviest part.
All the rivers were blown.
All our plans to overnight and explore were shut down.

Without local knowledge, we ended up fishing lake Brunner and Lake Poerua a fair bit.
We still got fish to 4.5lb, but it wasn't really the NZ sight fishing experience we were hoping for.

The guides I wanted to book weren't available, and I'm kind of glad given the weather we got.

We got three good weather days out of the 10.

One good weather day on the Wangapeka.
Fish were cruising the pools chasing each other instead of sitting on station, we saw some big fish.
my buddy lucked one of these cruisers with a royal wulff after several casts (the fish took downstream).
I had given up on this pool assuming the fish had seen us already (and thinking it was a long shot with a wulff),
but then I heard the fish on call over the walkie.
I ran back downstream to help net but he lost the fish just before netting.

We only saw 3 other fish sitting on station in the 6-8km we walked.
I managed to get a take on a paradun, but it ran downstream hard and threw the hook.
the other two fish we spooked after several good casts with flies they weren't interested in.

Next good day was wasted exploring the Anatoki.
A good run and a few good pools at the Rainbow Valley Community fooled us into fishing this river.
That was the end of the good water, the water upstream of the community was one big rapid without
any decent pools or holding water for at least the next 1-2km.
There was lots of pocket water we expected to at least see some juveniles, but it seemed devoid of life.
There may be better fishing upstream of if you were to chopper in, but it was a lot of walking for no results.
John Kent was right, NZ fishing was wrong on this one.

The next good weather day was on the Aorere by the Heaphy track start. We walked lots of fantastic water.
Hard walking over big basketball size rocks, but this is one beautiful river.
After several km we only found one pool with cruisers that were not interested in anything we had.
We managed one small fish blind.
Another tough long day of walking

After that we got hit with the rain system and kept heading south till we ended up at lake Brunner and Lake Poerua.
We got soaked, but at least we got fish here blind casting.
Some exciting fishing amongst the deadfall were the river runs into brunner, but it was very swampy.

We got some bigger fish at Poerua (average nz size) but we at least got sight fishing amongst the deadfall at the southern end of the lake.
It's pretty swampy here, and moving lifts a lot of silt, but the fish here don't seem to mind.
My buddy hooked one which wrapped him around a log.
He was determined to get his fly back despite my insistence that he just break it off, so he wades out, calf deep in silt balancing on deadfall.
I wade in behind him to hold his rod and bag so he can reach the end of his tippet.
We were kicking up a lot of silt, when I look to my left and see a trout cruise behind me, through the cloud of muck we had just made.

I basically shove my buddys gear back at him with enough time to remove the fly from my guide and let it pendulum swing into the water beside the trout. It wasn't even a cast, but the fish turns, swims over and nails the woolly bugger.
Then it was on, the fish immediately runs under a log, I manage to turn its head and bring it back under into the semi open area we are standing in and control it enough to get it to the net.
Only 4.5lb, but given the weather we had, not too bad,

Anyway after we release the fish, by buddy is back to getting his fly off the log, but he's been broken off.
Next day I catch another fish around the dead fall, with buddy's fly in its mouth.
Trout released, fly returned to owner.

I still have unfinished business with your South Island rivers which seem to always be blown out for me.



scotish wildfisher
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2018 11:30 pm
Location: Lanarkshire

Re: Intro and leader question

Post by scotish wildfisher » Fri Aug 24, 2018 2:45 am

Hi a NZ guide introduced me to poly leaders and ive used them ever since.A company called Airflo supplies them in the uk and they will turnover a long leader.Other companies including the american ones have started stocking them. I tend to do loop to loop with fly line and tippet.Many fly lines now have a handy small loop.However I remember the first large fish I caught on the oreti where I had attached the poly leader to fly line without a loop using one of nylon socks provided and a dab of glue.During a long fight with the fish this connection kept rubbing on my top ring of the rod and eventually snapped off.The fish just sat at the bottom of the pool with my long tippet and polyleader attached.My fly line had fallen thru the rod rings and hung from the reel.I grabbed the end of the polyleader and tied it to the flyline and started pulling on the fish.It turned and moved down to the next pool and I thought this is the end but the fish moved into the shallows and I ran and netted it. Sorry not much valuble info but it brought back a nice memory.



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fraser hocks
Posts: 915
Joined: Sat May 10, 2014 3:25 pm
Location: Queenstown

Re: Intro and leader question

Post by fraser hocks » Fri Aug 24, 2018 10:42 am

HEHE nice story James. Always fun memories hey?

Yea we tend not to use Polyleaders down here on the south island much. They do turn over heavy terminal tackle well, but they tend to slap the water pretty hard, usually spooking the fish. I will use them early season when nymphing deep etc.. for turning over big weigth but defiantly not when typical summer fishing. Oh and obviously the sinking T-type are standard part of the arsenal when using the double handed (spey) kit in winter.


Bucking trends in fly fishing since 1970!

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