This is a very sensative issue. I used to fish with a noodle rod and I have read many books on different techniques. Up in lake michagian they use leaders as long as ten feet for salmon and steelhead. They say that these long leaders are necessary if you weren't going to spook the fish. Maybe they were flossing the fish, maybe they weren't. I talked to a hatchery worker on the Kalama and he told me how to "leagaly snag fish" It was kind of like plunking only that instead the leader was five or six feet long with a corky tied in back of the hook. If you hook a fish outside of it's mouth chances are you snagged it.