A Pig’s Tale:
A Very Brief Lesson In Leaders

by Thomas Ames Jr.

Autumn is the time for fishing "fine and far off." When the water is low and clear, and the fish move into shallow water to feed, they are on high alert for predators, human or otherwise. Most of the surface insects are very small. Such conditions demand the use of very fine tippets, 7x or smaller, and these present their own set of problems. There’s one in particular that refuses to be ignored.

Last season, during a Trico hatch, my most reliable pattern was being reliably snubbed. Somehow my tippet had developed a corkscrew pigtail near the fly and was standing out like a bison in a flock of sheep. Through haste and overconfidence I had committed a textbook error.

Pigtails can ruin a day’s fishing. Once there, they are nearly impossible to remove. The only solution is to tie the fly on correctly in the first place.

I tried every leader-straightening trick I knew, to no avail. Finally, after ruining several more lengths of tippet, I diagnosed the cause. In tightening the clinch knot, I habitually grasped the fly in one hand, the tippet in the other, and, with a single pull, gradually increased the tension until the knot was tight or the leader snapped. Then I’d slide my fingers down the length of the tippet to straighten it out. This worked fine on heavy leaders. It was a disaster on small ones.

I decided to try combining the two actions by grasping the fly in my left hand, moistening the fingers of my right and sliding them gently down the tippet. After three or four repetitions the knot came tight and my tippet remained as straight as a desert highway.

Need I add that I caught a fish on the next cast, and lived happily ever after?

©2002 Thomas Ames Jr.