the thin end of a floating polyleader is as thick as the butt end of a mono leader

 

something to keep in mind with the scandi heads is that not all of them will throw 15' of leader the same. lines like the afs are designed to be fished with a shorter leader (8-10') as a result of their longer front taper and overall length. lines like the airflo compact scandi, vision ace, beulah elixir and to some extent, the sa skagit deluxe, will throw 14ft of poly or mono with no problem. now if you want more out of your scandi heads but want to retain the "light" feel, dont rule out modifying the line either. check with someone whos done it though before you start hackin' away to see what has worked for them.
id imagine that varying the stiffness of the mono used for a leader can affect the turnover, but then you also have the different densities and sink rates available with the polys that mono doesnt offer. most people ive fished with that throw these lines prefer polys and tips, myself included. best thing i can suggest is to just get out there and fish them, youll figure out a system that works for you.

 

I recently put a 460grn AFS scandi on my Meiser and was very pleased. I then tried a 520grn AFS scandi and it was a disaster. Given what you said about leader lenth I'm wondering if I went to a shorter leader if I'd be back in business?

Thanks,

GBeeman

 

I run a 16 foot leader for my 7wt Airflo Scandi head w/ matching Echo rod. It casts great. When I use a poly leader I just use about a 5-6 foot leader behind whichever one I have on.

 

If you need to get down, poly leaders will more likely give you an edge over a long mono leader. Although, depending on the tip diameter of the scandi head, you may have difficulties with turn over when using the fast sink poly leaders.

Don't bother with the intermediate, hover, floating poly leaders. They do turn over nice, but you can make a tapered mono leader do as well. And whatever you do, do not,,,,,repeat,,,,do not fish a riffle hitched fly on a poly leader. Every time that riffle hitched fly goes sub surface, it will spin around and wrap that poly leader up like a slinky!

 

If you need to get down, poly leaders will more likely give you an edge over a long mono leader. Although, depending on the tip diameter of the scandi head, you may have difficulties with turn over when using the fast sink poly leaders.

Don't bother with the intermediate, hover, floating poly leaders. They do turn over nice, but you can make a tapered mono leader do as well.

Not to worry with the fast/extra fast poly leaders; I use them all the time with my scandi heads. Zero problem.

fae

 

Thanks for the great advice.

What I'm basically discovering is that there is no substitute for casting time on the river and playing around with lines, but these are good starting point suggestions.

Now, if we could get a day or two above freezing!

CS

 

Like Brian mentioned lines like the AFS Rio head throw poly leader great from the floater to the super holy shit fast sink, or whatever they call it. I use the AFS because I prefer poly leaders in most situations as they allow me to use a sustained anchor cast more consistantly.

 

the real question asked was whether polyleaders are appropriate for waking / surface presentations. While polyleaders do smooth out turnover of the more powerful scandi head designs, I personally don't want that thick material anywhere near my waking fly - that's my own bias. Now maybe if you hang 10' or more of monofilament off a polyleader you can get around this issue, but then we're talking a 20' leader, and that's a whole other can of worms in terms of control and presentation, particularly when short casts and/or heavy cover are interjected into the equation

 

This is the setup I use for skating with the Echo Scandi head. 6 feet of 30# Maxima ultragreen, 3 feet of 20#, 3 feet of 15#, 3-5 feet of 0X-1X Seaguar. The Sinking Seaguar drops the knots below the surface so they make no disturbance, but the fly stays high and dry still. Also, I don't believe Steelhead to be leader shy for the most part.

Here is a short video of it in action (two parts because I don't feel like editing it) These guys from Nevada hooked and landed three Steelhead in 15 minutes before dark.
http://tinyurl.com/5ryqy3
http://tinyurl.com/6h7qhm

You can see it is just a long leader for the most part. I use the same setup to stick nymph too. There is more than likely a great store bought alternative but I am a cheap ass..

I found that any shorter on the leader and the anchor pulled for most beginning/imtermediate casters with small flies.