Rigs Lab · Gear & fly fishing rigs + leaders
The rig builder and library for fishing. Lay out every cut, knot and turn to scale, start from a photo of a formula in a book, on a website or in your notebook, then publish it for anglers everywhere to tie, clone, share, print and fish.
Build it to scale
Every section, knot and turn, drawn the way you tie it, with the cut list worked out for you.
Start from a photo
Snap a formula from a book, a website or your notebook and it comes back as a rig you can edit.
Test it in the tank
Watch it drift, sink and turn over before it ever touches the water.
Share it, print it
Publish it to the library, send the link, or print a card for your vest.
41 to 45 of 45 rigs
An 11.5-foot heavy mono leader for swinging big flies to salmon on a 9-11 wt. A 55 inch butt of .024" steps down through 37 inches of .020" and 28 inches of .018" to an 18 inch tip of .016", joined with blood knots. The heavy butt turns over large tube flies and weighted salmon flies, and the stout tip holds a big fish in strong current.
Kaufmann's 10-foot steelhead leader for a sink-tip line: 35 inches of .023 mono stepping through .021, .017 and .013 to 30 inches of 1X, .010. Blood knots join the heavy sections and a triple surgeon's knot joins the tippet. The sink tip takes the fly down, and the leader turns over a swung streamer on a 5-8 wt rod. There's also a 0X variation; see the questions below.
A 54-foot tight-line mono rig for fishing weighted streamers and jigs to steelhead and big trout. It runs 564 inches of 20 lb Sunset Amnesia, 18 inches of 15 lb and 18 inches of 12 lb Maxima, a 4 mm heavy tippet ring, a 12 inch Cortland bi-color sighter and 36 inches of 0X fluorocarbon tippet. The thin mono replaces the fly line through the guides, so the fly sinks fast and you stay in direct contact with it.
Lefty Kreh's simple 9-foot leader: about half butt, a quarter middle, and the rest a short step and tippet. Here that is 48 inches of .024 mono, 24 inches of .021, 12 inches of .018 and 24 inches of .013 at the fly, joined by three blood knots. Built for a 7-8 wt line, it turns over streamers, bass bugs and light saltwater flies.
Ray Bergman's 8 foot steelhead leader, 95 inches in all. Five 19 inch sections of mono step down from .021" at the butt to .011" (0X) at the tip, joined with blood knots and a triple surgeon's knot. It is a short, stout taper that turns over a swung wet fly on a floating line and holds a steelhead in heavy current.
