Nice Hatchery rainbow trout – a reminder of the days when I find the metal leader eyelet on my fly line.
Yes folks, as many old timers like myself recognized, this is a barbed metal eyelet that we often used to create a nice junction between fly line and leader. The barbed point was shoved into the fly line core and the leader tied to the nice metal ring. Simple and effective, and I do not recall EVER loosing leader with fish when using these devices, but probably used these fishing for trout, not steelhead and big fish.
A HUGE Thank You to all who responded; Don’t think I remember a day with 11 comments in in less than a day – responding to a simple blog post question. Funny how well many people remember these metal leader eyelets, used join leader butt to fly line.
Also interesting the variety of opinions about the gizmos: some folks seemed to have good luck with these, but others have less than fond memories. Hummmmmm. I do think I remember the issue of jamming the barbed shaft into a thumb or forefinger – not often but often enough to be very cautious. I also remember the problem of the pointed shaft sticking out of the fly line instead of staying straight in the center of the core, as intended.
Most of the gadget names sound vaguely familiar and most are probably right or close enough.
Leader to fly line eyelet.
Hope this reminder of our fly fishing roots was a little fun. The braided loops we can add to our lines plus the factory loops with line labels are sure a step-up from the gear we had back in the 1960s and 70s, but somehow we managed to get by then, catch fish, and have plenty of fun.
Jay Nicholas, August 2015
