Fly Fishing Leader Construction: LeaderCalc

The leader calculation tool designed by Steve Schweitzer is an excellent resource for anglers who want a picture of all the considerations surrounding effective leader construction. If you want a long Sunday read, settle in with Schweitzer’s “Hyper-Compleat Principles of Leader Design,” which details the principles of good leader design and serves as an introduction to the LeaderCalc tool. You can download the tool itself — a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with lots of built-in macros based on leader length, tippet size and line weight — here.
While Schweitzer doesn’t cover many larger leaders (there’s very little applicable to salt water), you’ll get a ton of suggestions for 3x – 8x tippets and 3- to 7-weight lines for a variety of circumstances.