This is a good podcast to recalibrate people’s expectations. Nothing wrong with having fun with these fish, but be honest to yourself and others about the legitimacy. If you wade a quarter mile of water and see 10 fish over 20” there is probably something off. Don’t tell me it’s wild if you pulled a 24”, five 18” and 10 fish over 16” out of the same run.

Hi Steve. Nobody every likes this answer, but I’ll give it to you anyway . . . You surely can substitute materials in these rigs . . . but I would not — not until you’ve fished long and hard with the original formulas. Only then would I make changes. All of these leader formulas came from a ridiculous amount of hours testing and swapping out materials. And all of the tactics that I talk about on Troutbitten are based around the performance you can get with these leaders. If you sub out 15 lb Amnesia for the 12 lb, then YES, it will make a difference. And even swapping out the Chameleon for the Hi-Vis green — YES, it will make a difference. In that case, when you want to do some of the streamer presentation I suggest, you will have a hard time seeing two feet less of a sighter.

Leader formulas matter. They are precise. For years, I said the opposite. I would answer people that if it was close, go ahead and sub it out. But WAY too often, I then got follow ups from anglers who struggled to do some of the things that this Mono Rig is BUILT to do.

So don’t sub it out.

The Maxima website has the materials, if you can’t find them elsewhere. And their shipping is fast and fair. Likewise, ebay and amazon have Amnesia and Gold Stren if you can’t find it elsewhere.

Cheers.
Dom

I have some older bright red Amnesia 15 lb. Would it hurt anything to substitute that for 12 lb in the sighter? Also, I’m having trouble finding Maxima HV 12 lb for the transition section. Would Chameleon 12 lb be the best substitute?

Hey now! Yeah, after 1500 articles, podcasts and videos, there’s usually a Troutbitten thing dedicated to what you’re looking for.

I was having trouble visualizing how your rod movements caused the head-flip until I searched for “streamer head flip” knowing that I’d find content. Sure enough, I found the specific video and your key comment that the best, if not only, time to effect a head turn easily is when the streamer is across from you, not upstream or downstream. Then it clicked and I got it…the video showing the streamer floating slowly also helped to illustrate how the head turns without moving the streamer through the water. Bingo!

Thanks, as always!

For a few moments, yeah.

Well, in this podcast season, we’ve said this twice: The best way to protect the trout is don’t fish for them. None of us are blind about this fact. We all choose to fish, same as you, and hunt. But if anyone puts the safety of trout as paramount, then they shouldn’t fish. That’s why the discussion about barbless hooks, water temps, tippet strength, etc. can all fall a little flat.

Fishing for trout never helps the trout, right?

Thank you, Tom.