French leader / leader to hand

Readers of this blog will perhaps remember that last year I spent a day on the Ure with an angler who fished leader to hand . The guy is a damn fine angler and I was comprehensively out fished  I think I would have been even if he had been using a cane and a bent pin,  what it did do however was to demonstrate what an effective tactic it was.  Over the last year I have used the same tactic a number of times when conditions have favoured it and have found it very effective.  Like fishing traditional spiders and the upstream nymph Its a tactic that on its day is deadly and is something that will have a permanent place in the armoury.


Its not often I post a link to websites or other blogs but I found the following series of articles so good that I have no qualms of offering a link .  I actually printed them of and took them on holiday to Portugal with me last year and they were my holiday reading .  What was refreshing is that I find that 99.9% of so called instructional or "new" tactic writing on fly fishing found on the interweb. Is just the same old stuff re hashed or in many cases just reprinted,  These were an exception and actually offered some new ideas.


http://www.fishandfly.com/our-world-of-fishing/3038-fishing-on-the-frontier-part-37-leader-to-hand.html


A year or two back the Author published an article or two in fly fishing magazines his critics were pretty ruthless under a series of letters " wheres the mass" where a few very notable "experts" stated it was impossible to cast such a rig. To be honest at the time I didnt take a whole bunch of notice.  But I can say that although my casting skills are pretty average I can say that this average angler can cast a 10 m  leader with a fly on the end and its a bloody effective technique. its also a very easy ( and cheap )  form of fly flishing to get into.  Many anglers who fish rivers have a 10ft 3/4 wt for grayling fishing .  That is the rod for the job.  The leader, well I used 10m of copolymer as suggested.

Apologies If you have already read the articles, but if you havent I think they are worth a read.