Leader Additives

[alanb_ct]

These two staples belong in every fly fisherman's vest or pack.

Mucilin – floatant
Apply to sighters and leader butt section for greased line methods. The green tub contains silicone and works better.

Loon Snake River Mud – “sinket”
Especially useful for light tippets and light sinking flies. Apply to leader below sighter or heavier sections, will degrease leader to eliminate surface tension effects and add effective mass for sinking. An effective substitute is river mud. I saw a tv show one time and Dave Whitlock was discussing the use of river mud to remove smell from flies also.

[Davyfly]

No question of a doubt about Mucilin, l would never be without it.
Mud, yes also.
I make my own mix from a combination of Fullers earth and dish detergent, l have as yet not found a better product out there.
By mixing these two products you produce a thick paste, very similar to wet river mud.

Fullers earth is a dry clay compound, l beleive they mine it in Gorgia or down that way someplace, l have a connection in FL to obtain it, its not that costly.

Yes, Dave does use river mud and also moss to give his fly the smell of the river, his belief is it takes away the smells of tying materials and other chemicals we use, not to mention the human smells.

Tell you this funny story. Some say that the smell of tobacco can deter fish, not my experience as l smoke.
Then on more than one occasion while fishing stillwaters, l have caught fish on fag butts, Oh that is the UK term for a cigarette butt by the way, we call cigs there fags.

Davy

[AaronJasper]

I notice that when fishing really fine tippets like 6X the mud really helps to break the surface tension ie. you don't see the curls of the line lying on the water after the cast. Keep in mind that i am fishing very small size 16-20 flies when using these fine diameter leader systems. thre to say that the mud is not as important when fishing heavier flies as the weight of the flies is enough to break the surface tension.

[Davyfly]

Aaron l use the Fullers earth for two reasons, one being the same as you to sink fine X line, needed at times when fishing both dries, emergers and nymphs in the film, the other applied to small nymphs.

DW

[Nymphmeister]

Davy-
Those applications sound fine, just don't be putting them on fag butts, they might get excited.

[nutman]

ive been woundering about our smell on flies .Ive read that the smell of human scent ,can make salmon leave a pool . I think ill be putting mud on my flys for a while .davey why the soap,is it to make the the clay(mud) stick? Or do you think it removes human scent ?
Im super interested in scents on flys ,Ive been fishing spey patterns ,and ive woundered about adding krill or some type of fish scent to it to mask human scent /Yet im also thinking that might be cheating . Yet the guys out here use egg flys ,both fly fishing and bait casting .I know people put scent on them .When is it considered cheating ?Or is that a matter of perpective . Ill just use mud for now ,id just like to see what people think.

[Davyfly]

The reason to use the dish detergent is this,
Fuller earth is a dry powder, by mixing it with the DD it allows you to make a past, that will stay that way in a airtight container.

So far a scent additives for flies, you know l am not saying it has not worth on the other hand l doubt that it does.
l know some guys swear by the use of WD 40, l know other who have soaked flies in crushed fish food pellets, l guess if that give you confidence OK.

It is in some places illegal to add scent to flies, here on the White river trophy zones scented artificial bait is illegal, as many of the baits used by Bass fisherman contain also
Power bait is illegal, but unscented worms are OK.

Davy

[nutman]

Ok it isnt about confidence ,i was more interested in covering my scent on the fly . At the same time the type of fly im going to be using shouldnt need any scent coverage .From what my guide friend matt says as long as you get it over them and it is the right time ,they are going to hammer the fly .
Ive been trying spey flys ,yet it has been very cold and the bite is slow .the water is 40 degrees so the fish are not moving hard at this point .They will bite egg patterns ,but what is the point .
I want to do this on a fly , not a worm or an egg . Tradtional patterns work better in the summer .
alot of patterns are designed to look like shrimp ,the tube flys here are big ,larger then your biggest atlantic salmon pattern!!! Yet there are tradional patterns that work on certain rivers. I just feel like if i use a egg pattern or a worm pattern .I might as well use a spin rod .The spey and shrimp patterns are hard to tie which is why im fishing them . It is like offering them the best I can .
well now that im off the subject Id like to know if there are any other types of things you might use to sink the fly

[Gregorygob]

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[Gregorygob]

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