Euro nymphing

[trigger7mm]

I have a 4 weight rod with floating line on it. What would be the best way to set up for euro nymphing. Thanks for your help.

[KylerL]

What I like to do is make my own leader for euro nymphing since you have floating line you’ll want a long leader I would do 9 ft of 15lb test then use a double surgeons knot or a blood knot to 3 ft of 10lb test then your sighter material after that and then however you wanna run the flies

[trigger7mm]

Would this work...? A 15’ tapered leader attached to my floating line, to that a 3’ length of high vis backing material, and to that my tippet material? Another thought would be 40’ of 20 lb. high vis mono, and to that my tippet material via a small tippet ring?

[Elstunn]

look up a formula on the old youtube. But I'll give you the one I like for just attaching to a floating line and not having to pull knots through my guides very much. I use bloodknots to connect the materials

18-20 feet of 20lb (I use Maxima chameleon, but any mono should work.)
3-4 feel of 15lb
3-4 feet of 12 lb
2 feet of sighter (I use SA in 0.011 in or about 3x)
cut the sighter at a colour transition and bloodknot it back together to leave to 2-3 inch tags for visibility
then a 2mm tippet ring at the end and just add whatever length and diameter of tippet the water depth calls for.

your method will work, but this is just the one I like. Its good for starting out and is pretty easy to cast. the taper aids turn over.

If you do use yours with a tapered leader, make sure to cut the leader back to where its just thicker then whatever you use as a sighter. Turnover will be way harder if you tie onto the 2-3 feet of tippet that makes up the end of packaged leaders. And extend your but section with mono that is equal or thicker than the but of the leader.

[trigger7mm]

Great info. Thanks very much.

[goldscud]

Can someone explain why you need 30ft of leader?

Why would you need more than 15ft

[Elstunn]

The reasoning is to keep tight to the flies and to avoid having to bring your loop knot at the end of you fly long through the guides. Fly lines are heavy and you aren’t using it to cast. You’re using the weight of the flies. A fly line will sag, not only out the end of the rod, but also between the guides. This puts slack in the system and makes it lesS sensitive. Having a light mono leader only through the guides and out the end of the rod also lets your flies maintain drifts further away as it is too light to drag them out of a current seem if you have the weight right. A fly line will overpower your nymphs and drag them out of seems that are further away.

The main example is if you have fly line out you can’t fish much beyond the end of the rod very easily. A long light leader you can reach 25-30 feet with practice. If you use a thin euro nymphing line then shrink your leader to 10-15 feet. The line is designed to eliminate the sag and is much nicer to handle then mono.

[Elstunn]

So many typos and I don’t know how to edit🙄. Hopefully it’s clear despite that.

[goldscud]

Thank you for your explanation.
Kind of like Centerpinning without the bobber.
I imagine a long spinning rod might be even more effective.
The results must be very good and you can vacuum out a run. It would be devastating on a Cutthroat stream. Perhaps too good.