Hi Al,

No, that’s just the eye of the hook.

Cheers.
Dom

Thanks again for all your hard work promoting the sport.

Take care.

Greg- I recently gave up on carrying 2 fly rods (1 for tight line/indicator nymphing and 1 for dry/dry dropper) with me while fishing. It’s just too much of a hassle to deal with. So on my next trip I plan to use the Troutbitten mono rig system for all my fishing, and do it on a single rod.

That being said, your method of carrying 1 fly rod but multiple tenkara rods pre-rigged so everything is ready to go, is very interesting. I know very little about tenkara so I was wondering how/where the pre-rigged dry fly is stored on/with the tenkara rods? Where and how you carry the 3 tenkara rods while fishing (in a backpack?) And whether it would be possible to further reduce the 3 tenkara rods down to just 1? Thanks.

Thanks for the reply and also the reply to my email about rod selection. Your website is a wealth of information and I truly appreciate it. You’re good people.

I love that question. I think that’s important, too. I attach leaders this way:

https://troutbitten.com/2017/03/21/get-me-back-to-my-fly-connecting-and-disconnecting-the-mono-rig/

But I also have been just using a three turn to a fly line loop. It’s pretty darn clean going through the guides.

HOWEVER, the best thing is to use a longer butt section. On my boat rod and reel, I have a longer butt section, because I know I’ll be casting further than 30 feet. That’s all it takes. Longer butt section.

Make sense?

Dom

I like it. You should send me a picture of the rod holder on your belt. I love that kind of stuff.

I also admit that the drift of a single dry fly on a Tenkara rod is hard to beat.

I agree with your all points. I almost always fish small mountain freestones where the features of the stream change every 20 feet and a double digit inch fish is a trophy. To be honest, I am fishing nymphs 90% of the time with a dry or streamer (small, size 10) the other 10%. If I use a modular rig it ends in only a foot of 2x mono, which, when I nymph is held above the water (i.e. I still only have one diameter of tippet underwater). With tiny fish and tiny streamers 3 or 4x fluoro is plenty and casting is easy.

Really I hate fishing dries with a mono rig. If I am going to fish dries at a distance it is with traditional fly line/leader. For short distance I have a dragonfly rod holder on my wading belt, the fly rod goes in that pointed behind me and out comes one of the 3 tenkara rods I carry with me (8’6″, 10′, or 12′ depending on stream confines, super light & minimal weight) pre rigged with a furled leader and a dry fly. I can store my fly rod and extend my tenkara rod in MUCH less time than it would take me to clip off the fluoro tippet, tie on mono tippet & tie on fly. Plus the drift and control you get with a tenkara rod can never be surpassed with even light mono IMHO.

Greg and Tomas,

So for me, I much prefer to use a tool best designed for the job, rather than to try and make one tool work. I understand the desire for an all purpose leader — I’ve tried to be happy with different versions — but I cannot get around the inherent weaknesses for each method.

The Mono Rig as I use it, is extremely versatile, but part of the Mono Rig, is the ability to adapt easily. It also takes that willingness to adapt. I feel like I waste more time and fish worse when I’m trying to make a leader do something that it doesn’t do well.

Changing from nymphs to streamers above the sighter takes no more time than it takes to change out the tippet only. It’s a few more wraps on a Loon Rigging foam, that’s all. And then can have a more stout sighter.

With the do-it-all leader you are talking about, that requires using 3x or 4x for streamers and nymphs. I feel like neither is great for both. I strongly prefer to fish streamers on 2x or 1x, and I like strong 5x for nymphs. But this is because I want to throw large streamers at times (and I’m almost always fishing two streamers — top one small). Throwing large streamers on 4x with a limp, 1X Bi-Color sighter isn’t fun for me. With that much limp material is makes the casts too much like lobbing and there’s too much slop in the system, for me.

The do-it-all leader (or my own Mono Rig formula, for that matter) does handle small streamers well enough, and I often swap out my point nymph for a small streamer quickly. I just don’t fish it the way I fish big streamers, though.

Whew . . . that was long.

Last thing, though, I also don’t care for using the Mono Rig for dries. I like it for dry dropper work, but I love just switching leaders over to a Harvey Dry Leader (takes about a minute) and letting fly line do the job it does best. Attempts to fish most dry flies with a Mono Rig are another square peg in a round hole situation, for me.

Tomas, I don’t think the tippet ring is the issue with breakage, unless you have a tippet ring with some abrasions where perhaps the ring is not round. If there’s nothing wrong with the ring, and the knot is good, it will hold with no problem. And I find a Davy Knot or clinch much quicker and more efficient than a blood knot — less wasted material too.

Cheers.