** NOTE ** Formula for the Harvey Gold Leader appears below
It’s 8:00, and your morning begins by tucking large ant patterns tight to the bank. Each delivery of the dry fly drifts the ant a few seconds in slow bank water before quick, neighboring currents rip away all provided slack and take the dry with it. Even three seconds in these spots is a success, and you’re looking for reaction strikes from large trout that have held over from night feeding on a variety of baitfish in the slow slots. Your Perfect Parachute Ant could provide just one more chunk of protein before these larger fish slide out of the skinny stuff and spend their sunny day sleeping in the deep stuff.
It works. And in the first hour, you bring three fish to the net and miss another. But none of the trout have much size, and you wonder if an earlier start would have paid off.
The top of the level has less bank structure, and you figure if this strategy is to keep producing, it might be better to move up two-hundred yards to the middle of the next level, where fallen timber has collected on the outside bend. Those logs are calling, and you have a history with some good trout there.
You scan the opposite bank, where you intend to wade. And the shaded, shallow water looks like a decent secondary option. So you decide to pitch streamers through the riffles ahead as you walk upstream. The change is made easily by swapping out the dry fly and its 5X tippet section with two streamers tied to a level piece of 1X. Small foam spools make storage a breeze. And the tiny tippet ring at the end of the leader’s mid-section makes attachment quick. The foot-long yellow sighter section in the Harvey Gold leader also provides an excellent reference for streamers that get lost in the sunny highlights at the choppy surface.
Three trout tap your Half-Pint in those two-hundred yards, and you lose a twelve-inch trout at the net . It takes just over five minutes to fish some water that you would have walked through, and you now have more data about where trout might be holding and feeding. As you come even with the bank timber, plans change again.
Instead of wading into the heart of the river to pitch ants toward the bank again, you decide to make the most of this pocket water. It’s juicy. So you nymph it.
After one clip at the tippet ring, two streamers tied to their 1X are wrapped to a foam spool. Two nymphs with a Dorsey Yarn Indicator are peeled from another foam, and both flies with an indy are quickly attached to the leader. The process takes thirty seconds. The indy is a great match for softer water on the near side of the pockets, and this deep water has a smooth, even flow, so you achieve fifty-foot drifts through one lane with good casts and better mending with line and leader on the water.
Trout, fallfish, trout, trout come in that order. Each of them stays hooked and finds the net. All in the deep stuff. But the depth ends upstream at a gravel bar, and the rest of the good water is full of complex currents that are much better suited for tight line nymphing at close range.
Slide the yarn out of the rubber band loop and slip the small elastic from its place on your tippet. There’s no line damage, and no evidence that there was ever an indicator on your leader just ten seconds ago.
Then you wade and cast through the pocket water, selecting the merger seams as primary targets, staying behind the trout and watching the yellow sighter above the water. You’re within the Golden Ratio of tight line nymphing and casting no more than twenty feet.
A half-dozen trout agree to your terms and you chuckle about how every water type is producing fish this morning.
Having fished through the pockets, you’re now within range of the timber you were eyeing up a little more than a half hour ago. You must make a decision. Trout have responded to three different fly types, three water types and four fishing methods. What do you want to do most?
Easy decision. Fish dry flies.
Cue another quick transition with the Harvey Gold leader. And with just one clip and one knot, you come off the two-nymph rig and back to the same #12 Perfect Parachute Ant that you started with.
With high hopes, you edge closer to the nearest log, and you’re ready for the biggest fish of the morning . . .
The Harvey Gold Leader Formula
24” of .016' Maxima Chameleon (18 lb)
18” of .015' Maxima Chameleon (15 lb)
16” of .013' Maxima Chameleon (12 lb)
14” of .012' Maxima Chameleon (10 lb)
12” — .011' Gold Stren (10 lb)
1.5mm Tippet Ring
12” of 2X Nylon Tippet
14” of 3X Nylon Tippet
16” of 4X Nylon Tippet
24” of 5X Nylon Tippet
Total: 12.5 feet long.
Here’s the Point
Most things in life that are labeled All-Purpose aren’t very much to get excited about. By aiming for a wide target, the specifics are lost. Compromises are made in an effort to generalize. And this was exactly my experience with most fly fishing leaders over the years.
I stumbled on the idea for the Harvey Gold by just fishing and trying to solve problems.
The Harvey Gold has the heart of the Harvey Dry leader, with a little more heft in the butt section and a piece of Gold Stren for a short sighter. Three small foams are part of the system, allowing for a quick swap of tippet sections, each specifically built for the river conditions, making this a truly modular leader without sacrifices.
No sacrifices? That’s not completely true. Because any tool that’s built to do many things will give up specifics somewhere. But these changes to the standard Harvey Dry Fly leader provide advantages as well.
The Butt Section of the Harvey Gold is a little longer and a little stronger than its parent. Starting at 18 lb Chameleon, it has more punch than the Harvey, but it’s still thinner than store bought, extruded leaders. The last Chameleon piece is .012″, and the Gold Stren is 10 lb, so the butt and the mid section are thicker, and stronger than the standard Harvey. That’s perfect for pushing around yarn indicators and streamers. It’s also great for distance casting on pure dries.
The Sighter Section adds a ton of versatility to this leader. A foot of Gold Stren is enough to see a sighter off the water while tight lining, but it’s not too much on the water to spook trout while mending or drifting over them.
Why not choose the popular opaque sighter material offered by so many manufacturers? Two reason: manufactured sighter material is much softer than Gold Stren, and bright lines on the water might spook trout. The foot long piece of yellow is just right. It nicely completes the taper of the mid-section in both diameter and stiffness. And the Gold Stren is visible enough to see, while being subtle enough not to alert trout.
The Foam Storage is part of the Harvey Gold leader for me. I’ve tried a dozen different methods for storing modular tippet sections, and small foams are the best. I keep one for nymphs, another ready with streamers and another for dry flies. The tippet choice of flouro or nylon, level or tapered, along with strength and diameter, all change when moving between tactics. And swapping the tippet section from the tippet ring down is quick, easy and inviting.
That said, there are many days where I simply adjust the tippet that I have on. For example, while fishing a single dry, I may choose to add a dropper to the dry fly. That one’s easy. Or, for a few casts with a nymph in a nearby run, I may clip off the dry and quickly attach a single nymph to tight line the system at close range. Yes, this puts a tapered section of tippet under water, but I spent a decade fishing that way, with the Humphreys nymphing method, so I have confidence in it.
Expectations and Limitations
I choose the Harvey Gold when I plan to make a lot of changes, when I want to be versatile, and I’m willing to accept small compromises.
The Gold Stren provides an excellent sighter while tight lining. But it’s not nearly as visible as my Standard Sighter or any of the sighters I build into my Mono Rigs.
The Gold Stren also provides a nice reference for how the leader is laying on the water, both while fishing dry flies and fishing nymphs under an indy, with fly line. That reference allows for better mending and better drifts, because I have more understanding of how things are laid out. However, any colored line might spook a percentage of fish, and I wouldn’t use the Harvey Gold in the flattest, lowest, clearest water.
The butt section and middle sections are built for more power, and that’s great for pushing and punching. Overall though, I’ll have fewer s-curves and less slack to the dry. It’s a compromise.
The added length of the butt section provides a little more reach when tight lining, but a twelve-foot leader will never do what a full-length, dedicated Mono Rig can. However, tight lining is a limited range system anyway, and contact nymphing with the Harvey Gold forces me to make the right choices about angles and distance.
Do It
I’ve been fishing this leader for over a decade. It’s a lot of fun to know that every tactic is close at hand. With one knot and thirty seconds, the next change is made and I’m casting a new rig.
Tie up a few Harvey Gold leaders, and fish them. I’m sure you’ll come up with your own adjustments and systems.
Fish hard, friends.
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READ: Troutbitten | Category | Fly Casting
Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com
Great article Dom, thanks!
Great concept. I’m assuming below the tippet ring formula is for dry? It would be great to show the total system for all 3 styles….I guess just a few feet of 1x or so for the streamers. What would you put before the ring for the nymphing, tight line rig?
Ps….amnesia vs. stren for the sighter??
I’ll have to try this! Great addition to the toolbox. I love that you publish approaches and tactics that are backed with years of experience!
Thanks, man.
Hi Jon. What’s below the tippet ring is and should be variable. I listed the dry Fly section to 5X, because that’s the baseline. But even that must change. So I didn’t list any of the other tippet sections because they are so situational.
Also remember, meant times I don’t change the tippet section but just make the fly changes.
Cheers.
Dom
For the tippet section do you use soft nylon for dry fly setup?
Yes.
Thanks, Joe.
Dom
Dom,
Thank you for the excellent article and description of uses for th eHarvey Gold leader. I have forwarded a link to some members of the Atlanta Fly Fishing club for their perusal. There has been an ongoing discussion lately concerning different hand tied leaders and I have forwarded your earlier articles as well.
I know that you can easily use the Harvey Gold leader tied directly to a floating fly line. Many of the local members are not as conversant with the mono rig, but I think they might be willing to try it on a floating fly line. I am pretty certain you are attaching it to a mono rig as well. If so, and assuming the use of a standard mono-rig, where are you attaching the Harvey Gold leader to the mono-rig? I would assume it would be tied directly to the 2o lb Chameleon mono segment and you would not be using the rest of the leader normally tied underneath that. Is that correct?
Thanks,
Geno Morgan
Hi Geno,
This leader is for a fly line. I’m not sure why people assume otherwise, but I’ve had others be confused by this. The Mono Rig is its own leader. Everything else attaches to a fly line.
Cheers.
Dom
Hi Dom – thank you for the article and the leader formula I am looking forward to trying it out this weekend. One question – the formula lists 14” of 10lb maxima but the butt section paragraph states that the maxima ends with the 12lb section. Do you include both the 10lb maxima and stren?
Thank you. Typo corrected. Yes, the 10 lb Chameleon is .012″, also stiffer than the Gold Stren.
Cheers.
Dom
Hi Dom,
I’m a little confused about how adding tippet (from the tippet ring) with nymphs for tight lining would work. How much tippet are talking about? Too much and your sighter will be too far from the waters surface. Too little and you’ll have a good amount of fly line out of your tip compromising the tightline advantage. Just want to have a better idea of how compromised you think tightline nymphing is with this system vs standard mono rig. Thanks!
Hi Dustin,
To tight line with the Harvey Gold, I would add whatever length tippet you would normally use for nymphing. For me, that’s about 5 feet of tippet.
You said you’d have a good amount of fly line out of your rod tip, but no you don’t. Take note, in the examples mentioned above I fished just about twenty feet from the trout. The key, then, is to fish at close range. Honestly, that’s within what we call the Golden Ratio of Tight Line Nymphing anyway. One rod length over and two rod lengths up. Think about this leader, which is about 12 feet long. If you are fishing a 10 foot rod, you could fish about 22 feet away and not have any fly line out of the rod tip. That truly is PLENTY of distance for a lot of great nymphing water. Even if you go a few feet further and fish a couple more feet, then you might have two feet of fly line out of the guides. That’s Joe Humphrey’s style, which I also mentioned in the article that I did that for a decade. It works just as well as modern nymphing tactics if you fish it well and stay within its limitations.
Here’s an article and video:
https://troutbitten.com/2024/02/20/video-the-golden-ratio-of-nymphing/
Cheers!
Dom
Dom, you’ve mentioned several times that you spent a long time nymphing using Joe Humphrey’s style. So did I. I migrated away from it some time ago, but I’m not sure if using a mono rig is more effective or if I was swayed by the ascendency of the mono rig in the fly fishing world. Could you speak about your own experiences? Why have you switched to the mono rig for most of your nymphing?
Hi Alex.
A Standard Mono Rig is definitely more effective. It’s more versatile, and you can be further away, with less drag than you can with a fly line in the mix. That’s important to me while nymphing, because I do it many different ways and places. The Mono Rig also gives me the same tight line advantage in a streamer system, where that range is even more advantages.
Cheers.
Dom
Thanks Dom!
Dom,
Great article. I am new to fly fishing and trying to learn the various techniques. I like the versatility of the Harvey leader. Can you elaborate on the different rigs that you had pre-tied? I like that concept especially as I am just learning how to make changes while in the water.
Also, what rod are you using that is good for all these various techniques?
Most fly rods of 4 or 5 weight are pretty versatile.
Remember you don’t have to change the tippet sections for this to be versatile.
If you do change, just adapt to suit your needs. When I change, it’s to fish streamers or nymphs so there’s no taper in the tippet.
Cheers
Dom
Dom, what rod and fly line are you typically fishing with this leader system?
4 and 5 are a great choice.
Great stuff. I fish a leader very similar this a lot in the summer too Covers a lot of ground!
Right on.
Will you be offering this leader for sale on the website?
Yes, later this month is our next leader sale.
Dom
Very useful article! You are great at making the trade offs and advantages clear for any given system/tactic.
This article might increase my use of fly line 50%. Who knows- you could even get a fly line sponsor! (Would’ve thought, right?)
I use a fly line every day, because it’s always on my reel, even when fishing a Mono Rig. I use the fly line in my tactics about 40 percent of the time, over a whole year, but in certain seasons, now for example, I fish fly line far more than a Mono Rig.
Cheers.
Dom
Hi Dom. Do you (would you) fish this leader system on a 10′ 2 wt?
Hi Steve,
There’s a lot to that questions. I don’t like 2 weights for anything, honestly. So for me, the answer is no. But if the 2 weight is your chosen rod, and you enjoy casting with it, then YES, this leader is a good match. Honestly, you can fish a Harvey on any rod.
Cheers.
Dom
Just watched the Read The Sighter video. Very informative. Do you ever use a Sighter on the Harvey Leader? If so, when?
My friend, you are in exactly the right place. Adding a sighter to the Harvey is EXACTLY what the article above is about.. Give it a read. Cheers.
Who knew that Maxima offered 18# Chameleon and Ultragreen? It’s not available on the 27 yard leader wheels but I found it on their 250 yard One Shot spools. So I now have several lifetimes worth of 18# Chameleon. Anyone need some?
18lb Maxima is not available in my local fly shops and I don’t want a lifetime supply of something I will rarely use so I built this with 0.017″ 20lb with no issues. Per Maxima’s website, 18LB Chameleon Maxima is actually 0.016″ diameter. Troutbitten’s formula for the Harvey Gold lists the 18LB as 0.018″ so I assume either the diameter or line weight is a typo.
Thanks, Barry. That WAS a typo. Thanks for finding it. I agree, the difference will not be significant enough, if you don’t want it to be.
Cheers.
Dom
My thoughts as well. I wish the 18lb came on leader wheels. I would rather not but a larger spool.
Dom,
Can you elaborate on the different tippets referenced in the article? What tippet size(s) and length for the:
Dry Fly tippet
Streamer tippet
Nymph tippet
Can you elaborate on the 3 different tippets you used in the above article? Tippet size(s) and length?
Dry Fly tippet
Streamer tippet
Nymph tippet
I started out using micro leaders for Nymphing and wanted to throw some dry fly. The whole idea I assume is to have enough power to cast the dry/steamers. I rigged the Harvey Gold and it just looks bulky with many knots by making tapered leader from 18lb down to 10lb. I’m using Uni knots with 4 turns, any possible knot to make it more smooth?? Unless it’s my knotting issue. Thanks Dom!
Hi there. Good, clean blood knots. But do understand that this is a dry fly leader first, and it can do a lot of other things well too. But if you’re comparing it to a micro mono rig, they are very different tools. If you want to get the most out of a tight line game, try a Standard Mono Rig. Cheers.
I’ve been searching around troutbitten.com for a good drifting/swinging wet flies leader. It’s not a tactic that I employ, but it’s something I want to try out for night fishing and broken grayling water. Any recommendations?
I don’t find that night fishing leaders for wet flies need be complicated. I fish a seven foot leader built from almost equal sections of 20, 15,12 and 10 lb Maxima Chameleon. Sometimes, I only have three sections and finish with 12 lb. Make sense?
Dmom
Dom. I’m a huge fan of the troutbitten project. Videos, articles, and especially the podcast. I decided to tie up a Harvey gold and try my hand at dry only fishing for a few weeks as I mostly tightline. I had a hard time casting at first but I believe that’s because I’m not used to casting only dries. After a couple of practice days, watching the fish and film the other day with how you cast the ant pattern, and getting out on a full day I absolutely love the way this leader build presents. I had my dries almost “floating” down on the stop and drop. Thank you! Keep up the great work and content.
Will the fish see the Stren? I like the visibility but worry it could spook fish on a dry fly or dry dropper. You have about 5′ to the fly but with complex currents and slack, that could be 3′ let’s say….. Could that spook fish?
What tippet do you use for the 2X and 3X segments?
Your links go to Rio SuppleFlex, but as far as I can tell they only make SuppleFlex in 4X/5X/6X/7X.
Sorry bit of a late comment, do you have any thought on an alternative to Gold Siren please. I don’t seem to be able to find it in uk and want to have a play with building leaders (currently on pretty basic mono setup or furled/tapered leader)
Thank you
Try Maxima HV.
Cool thanks for the quick reply
The Gold concept is on my short list. Great idea. I’m primarily a dry fly fisher, and I’ve fished the standard Harvey leader for decades. In fact, I used to get fishing tips from George Harvey back in the day of “snail mail.” Looks like a formula that will allow more flexibility in my fishing, plus perhaps a little more “oomph” in the butt section for windy days.
Cheers
Gday Dom,
When jumping up from the 4wt to the 6wt in NZ did you run a heavier butt-section before the compound taper in the Harvey style leaders?
Regards from Oz.
Dave