Jeremy Lucas: Leader-only Techniques
Tenkara, and the Italian pesca alla
Valsesiana, both fixed line fly fishing approaches, have been responsible for
extending the scope of the western-style.
In the United States anglers tend to be either tenkara enthusiasts (and
there are probably more of these here than in any other country of the world
other than Japan) or
aficionados of the western-style. In Europe, however, the situation is rather
more homogeneous, with top fly fishers adopting the very best of both styles
and marrying them in the so called leader-only or leader-to-hand
approaches. The latter, indeed,
developed from the French or Euro leader, which was a method designed
specifically for nymph presentation.
Like tenkara, however, contemporary leader-only allows optimum
presentation for both dry fly and nymph, though excels in the former.
We should not be viewing conventional
western-style and the fixed line as such polar opposites. They certainly represent the extremes of the
presentation spectrum, but they are utterly within the fold of fly
fishing. We should, rather, explore the
mid-part of this spectrum, where we adopt the best that both approaches have to
offer and marry them into what is the most elegant materialisation of the sport
that exists.
In so doing, we have to recognise the
faults, or weaknesses, associated with each style, as well as taking the
strengths of each. The great strength of
tenkara is certainly afforded by the low mass of the leader which allows
unbeatable presentation, particularly of dry fly and light weight sakasa
kebari (reversed hackle) spiders. At
its best there is merely a small section of tippet lying on the water, or even
none at all, with the fly poised at the surface on a tight leader. Other than at very short range, this is
simply not possible with western-style, at least where fly line is concerned,
simply because of the comparatively high mass of the line itself, producing
drape or sag between the rod tip and the water's surface. At its worst; the problem of yielding and
gathering line. By default the range at
which we fish tenkara is completely determined by the length of rod, leader and
tippet. Actually, this range limitation
is not the most important issue here, because 6-10 metres is a perfectly
acceptable range on the river, but the inability to retrieve and yield line is
a serious limitation. In the first
instance it requires us to target small fish, because to hook large trout, for
example, which are liable to move very quickly on long runs will result in the
inevitable break of fine tippets, and this is wholly irresponsible and will
give ammunition to the anti-fishing lobby.
Also, the fact that we cannot retrieve line, other than by hand-lining
of the tippet, is crude, and fraught with problems while dealing with a fish of
reasonable size. Indeed, what is on one
hand the most elegant form of fly presentation ever devised becomes completely
the opposite as we struggle with a long tippet and a lively trout.

Western-style, however, enjoys the
benefits of the fly reel, or rather rod guides, which allow us to retrieve line
and, importantly, to yield it to a running fish. Indeed, this is the overwhelming benefit of
the whole approach, even though with fly line itself (because of its high mass)
it is not possible to achieve fixed line quality of presentation.
One approach to circumventing these
problems is to introduce some form of line gathering system within tenkara,
such as passing the leader down through the interior of the telescopic blank so
that it can be retrieved at the butt section.
The European western-style fly fishers have adopted the alternative of
doing away with conventional fly line and using designed-for-purpose leaders. These stemmed from the French leader which
were designed for nymph fishing, but which are poor for delivering dry fly
other than at very short range. The
modern 'presentation' leader has been designed first and foremost for dry fly
delivery, or other flies with low mass (such as spiders). In combination with very light weight rods
such as 10' – 11' #2 and #3 weights, we have now arrived at the compromise
situation in which we have taken the best from both spectral opposites and
removed the deficiencies. We now have
sublime presentation potential, not quite up to the pinnacle of tenkara, though
at greater range, with the line gathering and yielding capability afforded by
the guided fly rod (and reel).
Tenkara purists will point to the
other great virtue of the fixed line approach; its minimalism. It requires, after all, simply rod, leader,
tippet and flies, and very few items of peripheral tackle. Actually, though, the leader-only approach in
western-style is almost as minimalistic in that the only item beyond the above
that is necessary is the fly reel. No
peripheral items beyond what we require in tenkara - Mucilin, line snips and
forceps – are strictly necessary, so we are still tending towards an extreme in
minimalism, while delighting in the supreme elegance of the style.
Make no mistake, the rate of
development in fly fishing, with the single-handed fly rod is developing at a
more rapid pace than ever before, and it is tremendously exciting. There should be no division between the fixed
line and running line sectors, because together we are pushing the boundaries
of what is possible. Lately, I have
fished two large (by British standards) rivers; the Cumbrian Eden and the Welsh
Dee. I have used fly line and tenkara,
along with the optimum of the leader-to-hand.
The huge shortcoming of the inability to yield line has been obvious
with tenkara, because trout and grayling of up to 47cm have been encountered,
while the crude presentation with fly line has certainly alarmed specimen
grayling on both rivers. The leader-only
approach has dominated in terms of success. It is the ideal compromise. I am spending the next two weeks on the San,
in Poland, an enormous tailwater, and I am fired by the prospects of further
discovery as I use the spectrum of approaches, fine-tuning the ideas of
'presentation' fly fishing which is the marriage of the running line and fixed
line approaches.

Daniel Svrcek, formerly of the Czech national team; one of the best nymph fishers in the world, with big Dee grayling on the leader-to-hand
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