Welcome to our newest product - the Multi-Looped Leader - from Massimo Magliocco & Barbless Flies. We have these available in two different sizes:

3 Metre - for smaller streams and rivers
5 Metre - for larger streams and rivers

The leader is a crucial element of importance (which is not completely appreciated) for the enormous advantages it can give you when dry fly fishing, fighting that scourge of the dry fly - drag. These leaders are specially designed and hand-tied with one thing in mind - eliminating drag wherever possible. This leader is unique, instead of knotting together gradually reducing diameters of line, to form the taper, this leader is tied with loops. The loops are micro perfection loops and are used to join the various parts of mono when making the knotted leader:

Starting from the principle that in order to fight drag, apart from specific anti-drag casts, it is also necessary to have a specific leader with certain characteristics regarding length and the kind of taper, the more rigid the leader is the more difficulty you will have to model it. Recently in relation to this, the concept of “many knots” (more knots = more rigidity) has been demolished. Today's self-tied leaders tend to have a maximum of 4 knots and an attempt has been made to tie knots with a much slimmer profile.

One more step was missing in order to make the leader more supple, which would allow it to adapt to currents in the case of the dry fly and underwater currents in the case of the nymph:

Massimo had the idea to connect the various sections of mono not with any of the classical knots but by means of micro perfection loops. A leader made with this system may seem useless but you really need to try it out!

The big problem with drag arises not so much in rough waters but rather in calmer ones where it’s important to reduce the wake effect caused by the fly and by the tippet. In these calmer waters, there are micro-currents which are invisible to the naked eye.

These micro-currents are usually generated by rocks which are 50 – 60 cm under the surface and the water seems to flow down quite normally and in places where you would normally cast without considering the consequences. In other words, strong currents are easy to see whilst these minor ones are not, especially to the untrained eye and it is on the latter ones that a looped leader comes into its own. The micro loops act as hinges, they also hold very well when setting the hook and playing the fish.

So they hold well; there is no collapsing of the loop when casting and they still transmit the energy of the cast. Massimo's biggest doubt was accuracy – but even with this he had no problems, so long as the tension during casting is kept constant (which is a problem even with classical knotted or tapered leaders) if the tension during casting is lost, the whole structure collapses. Massimo then started evaluating which advantages this new leader gives, especially with regard to drag. Eventually he tested both classical tapered leaders and looped leaders in the same conditions and got some extraordinary results especially in those conditions with the treacherous micro currents and strange surface tensions:

We have these leaders in 2 different sizes 3m (9.5ft) and 5m (16.5ft). Each leader ends in 0.20mm tippet. Specification of the leaders and their profiles can be seen in the table below:

Size	Tip Diameter (mm)	Butt Diameter (mm)	Lb
3m	0.20	0.53	6.0
5m	0.20	0.53	6.0

All you need to do is add 3ft to 4ft of your favoured tippet to the perfection loop on the end of the leader and you're good to go.

Looped Leader to Fly Line Connection:

Most fly lines now come with a welded loop at the tip, we find the best way to attach your looped leader is to tie a perfection loop (click here for tying instructions) in the butt end of your leader, and then use a loop-to-loop connection to attach it to your fly line. This way has the added advantage that should you wish to change your leader (for a longer/shorter/thinner one), then it's simply a case of loop-to-loop connecting the new leader.

Should your fly line not already have a welded loop on the tip, then our favourite way to attach a tapered leader is with a needle knot (click here for a fantastic demo of the Needle Knot).

Don't forget:

All of our products are delivered FREE of charge to ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD