The following is a leader recipe I got from Jeff Perrin. He is a friend and owner of The Fly Fishers Place fly shop in Sisters, Oregon.
This recipe is for fishing still water with a fly rod.
Leader Supplies
I use anywhere from 3 to 10 feet of 15 pound leader material, my preference is Seaguar STS 15#, but Maxima Ultragreen is fine to use. The Fluorocarbon Seaguar has distinct advantages.
On one end, I tie a Perfection loop IF the fly line has a welded loop (preferred but not all do) and on the other end I use an OVAL JAPANESE Tippet Ring. These are the best.
The reason for the difference in the length of the “chassis” butt section include whether I am going to use it as an indicator leader, or on a sinking line for stripping flies…
Water Depth Consideration
Typically deep water indicator use, my chassis will be 8 to 10’. For shallow water indicator use, my chassis will be 3 to 5’. If I am attaching it to a sinking line my chassis will be 3 to 5’.
Adding Tippet
My tippet is usually 3x, 4x or 5x, but hey, it could be almost anything.
On sinking lines, I usually use about 8 to 10’ of tippet and add a dropper tag with a triple surgeons knot so the flies are 3 or 4 feet apart. If I want to fish 3 flies (not too often) I’ll lengthen the tippet for getting enough length to spread the flies 4 to 5 feet apart.
On the indicator rig for deep water or shallow water, I just add tippet to get me in the zone I need to fish so a little simple math is required after determining that depth you plan to fish.
That said, we move about the lake on any given day, so imagine if you might need get deeper you can slide the indicator closer to the fly line tip and if that chassis is 5 feet, you can get your bottom fly 5 feet deeper if you need to.
