Leader or tippet?

[pedipop]

Fishing in a different location a few months ago, a guide advised discarding my tapered leader and replacing it with 4"0" tippet to insure the 2 nymph rig rapidly reach the bottom of streams. After changing as advised, my hook-up and catch rate immediately improved significantly (wild rainbows/browns 12"-24"). The streams reminded me of the GSMNP in terms depth and flow.

Have others adopted this or similar practices? What are the advantages or disadvantages to this technique? Thanks for your comments. I enjoy and learn much from your threads and responses.

[alexys01]

those are very nice size trout. were you fishing in ky , bark camp or the gorge area?

[pedipop]

alexys01,
They were very nice trout but not caught near this part of the world. But the fishing technique was suggested by the local guide and it seemed it might be applicable to the GSMNP streams. I am not the most experienced fly fisherman and hoped to get some advice from the real experts that post here every day.
Thanks for the interest.

[ijsouth]

I take it to mean you were fishing one of those knotless tapered leaders, huh? Well, I read this somewhere, and it's certainly true - sooner or later, you'll end up with a knotted leader anyway. It's inevitable that you'll lose length off the end of the leader due to retying, etc, and you'll have to replace that section with tippet material anyway. I avoid this situation by using a furled leader, where all I have to replace is the final length of tippet, but that doesn't work too well for a deep nymphing situation.

[David Knapp]

Pedipop, I believe that Hugh Hartsell uses a level piece of tippet material in place of a leader when he is fishing nymphs. Hopefully he'll chime in and explain but I think it is what you were saying about getting the flies down quickly...he is one of the best fisherman around so if he does it, it is probably worth looking into...

[Paddlefish]

When I first started flyfishing I used the tippet only method because I had to order leaders mail order or drive 60 miles to purchase one. It worked real well for me. When I finally got around to buying tapered leaders I never went back to tippet only. I think that the next time I go small stream fishing I will give it another try. By the way, the tippet that I was using was actually 4 lb. test stren.