Lengthen Your Leader Keep it Long

One of the bad habits fly fishers fall into too often is to buy tapered leaders, tie their dry fly directly to the end of them, and then to gradually take length off the leader as they clip off used flies and re-tie. Eventually leaders get short, stout, and much less effective. This severely inhibits the angler's ability to present dry flies to the fish effectively.

In dry fly fishing the leader serves two basic purposes - to create a low-visibility connection between fly line and fly, and to allow the angler to present the fly softly by gradually dissipating the cast's energy as it follows along the taper from thick to thin and from more rigid to supple. Both of these effects ensure that the angler doesn't scare fish. A short too-stout leader will scare fish on the cast by causing the fly to land too hard, the fly line to land too close to the fish, or it will spook the fish as they see the leader in approaching to eat the fly. Cutting the leader too far back into the heavier sections of the taper defeats both major purposes of a good dry fly leader.

Keep your leaders long and supple at the end by tying on anywhere from 1 to 4 feet of tippet to the end of the tapered leader and working down the tippet only as your cut and tie on new flies. When the tippet get's any shorter than around a foot clip it off and tie on a new section of tippet.

I've noticed that almost all anglers could benefit by having longer leaders in most dry fly situations. Of course don't go to extremes in length or the leader will be too hard to control, won't turn over entirely on the cast, or will tangle too often. Experiment with what works best for you but keep in mind that a leader that is too short will almost always scare fish or sink your flies as they splash hard on the surface.