HISTORY OF FURLED LEADERS

Tracing the history of furled leaders is a daunting task. The first written explanation of fly fishing appeared in "Ælian’s Natural History", written sometime around 200 A.D.. In his writings, Ælian described how the Macedonians crafted artificial flies to catch "fish with speckled skins"  from the river Astræus. He offers a pretty good discription of the flies used, but the only reference to any type of line explained that "Their rod is six feet long, and their line is the same length." Most historians agree that the line referred to in his writings probably consisted of plant or animal fibers (flax, water reed, grass, leather, or hair) which was twisted and twined into a yarn or string. This could be the very basic beginnings for the development of fly lines and furled leaders.

Through medieval times references were made in more than a dozen known manuscripts though they were very vague and non descriptive. A renaissance of sorts occured on the chalk streams of Southern England following the English Civil War (1642-1651) which is widely considered the birth of modern day fly fishing. There, stream keepers and famous anglers such as Isaak Walton and Charles Cotton spent their days perfecting their craft, and writing about it. Walton himself was a novice fly fisherman and the references to our sport in his book, The Compleat Angler,  were mostly made by his friends Cotton, Thomas Barker, Colonel Robert Venables, and Richard Franck. From these writings it is known that early fly equipment consisted of: "a twisted horsehair line, tapered from seven hairs or more at the thickest part down to three hairs or less at the point. All lines were home-made, and although horsehair was the rule, pure silk, and silk/horsehair mixes were used on occasion. The line was usually fixed to the top of the rod, in which case the length was less than twice the length of the rod."  (excerpt from "A FlyFishing History," Dr. Andrew N. Herd). The line used and written about by Isaak Walton and friends (and deciphered and transcribed by Dr. Herd) is a basic furled leader.

Furled leaders made their way across the pond to the United States and landed on the infamous limestone spring creeks of Pennsylvania. Many references are made in the annals of history as to their construction, materials, and weaving and twining techniques between the late 1700's and the early 1900's. The most common materials used during this period were horse hair and silk thread. In the 1930's the age of thermoplastic polymers was born. With the advent of dacron (and later on nylon) the age old art of hand furling fly fishing leaders was put on hold. Being the ever inquisitive and inventive type that a lot of fly fishers are, their attention was turned to finding out what they could make out of these new and exciting materials. Furling leaders gave way to tapered monofilament leaders and stepped tied monofilament leaders.

Within recent years interest in these amazing twisted and furled strands of fiber has been revived. Gaining in both  notoriety and popularity, leaders woven and furled with modern materials have been turning a lot of heads in the fly fishing community.