Frog Hair Fluorocarbon & Deep Blue
- By Brendan Mason
- Published 09/15/2004
- Lines
- Unrated
Brendan Mason
Brendan Mason is a Canadian born angler who now lives in Seattle, Washington. Brendan has fished all of his life and started a passion for fly in British Columbia where he grew up. His father a search and rescue expert and his mother a teacher, Brendan has the brains and skills to both out think and survive longer than the average Joe Blow. Brendan has fished extensively for trout and salmonids but in recent years has attacked the saltwater with gusto. His travels have taken him to Australia, Mexico, Argentina and beyond. Brendan also has the distinction of catching a 600 lb Mako on fly while fishing San Diego in 2006. You can often find him stalking carp in the shallows of Green Lake in Seattle.
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It's not very often that anything too exciting comes along in the world of leaders and tippet materials. The advent of fluorocarbon was a revolution, but there has not been much of anything generating buzz amongst anglers since then. One exception is a line of products known as Frog Hair.
Many fly fishermen I know have been talking about how great Frog Hair is, so I decided to try it out for myself. I had a couple of upcoming trips that would require leaders that could take a beating, so I stocked up some Frog Hair Fluorocarbon and the sister saltwater product, Deep Blue.
My first test of Deep Blue was while pike fishing in northern Alberta. I used 12" lengths of 80# Deep Blue for shock tippets on my pike leaders. Despite some surface fraying, the material held up extremely well to the toothy pike and resulted in more hookups than with wire shock tippets. It wasn't until after landing 20+ pike that I finally cut the tippet back a few inches past the frayed section. It's worth noting that this wasn't because I thought it was in danger of breaking, but simply because I was tying on a new fly to replace the other one that had been destroyed and didn't want to tie knots in the frayed material. Even in 80#, the supple Deep Blue knotted easily and had very low memory.
During my August trip to Baja, I used both spooled Deep Blue and Frog Hair Fluorocarbon, as well as Deep Blue tapered leaders. The tapered leaders were great on my 9 weight for smaller fish and I found they held up extremely well to the abrasive sand. While fishing clousers and similar weighted patterns, these leaders turned over well.
The spooled Deep Blue and Frog Hair FC was useful for tying class tippets as well as shock tippets. In all strengths, both products exhibited low memory and knotted very easily.
What makes the Frog Hair and Deep Blue products so supple and strong is what the manufacturer calls the Gamma Process. This process changes the molecular structure of the material from long chain molecules into multiple bonds between shorter molecules. The shorter molecules make the material much more flexible, while still retaining a high degree of strength.
Overall I was impressed with the Frog Hair line of products. With leaders and tippet materials, there are only a few qualities you can judge and both Frog Hair Fluorocarbon and Deep Blue lived up to their reputation in all areas. You can find Frog Hair products at just about any fly shop. I suggest giving them a try. You'll be pleased with the results.
Gamma Technologies Website