You'll see lots of leader formulas that suggest building the taper out of 5-7 lengths of various diameters. That's a lot of knots,,, doesn't need to be that complicated.
Build your leader out of 3 sections then add your tippet. The butt should be about 50 - 60 % of the total length before tippet,,, and then work down from there.
Lets say for a 6 wt fly line start with a 30 lb butt section, 5 feet long (60") long. The next section of 20 lb should be half as long again (30 "), followed by 15 inches of 12 - 15 lb. Now add a couple feet of tippet and you have a leader that is 10 1/2 - 11 feet long. That makes for a fairly general purpose leader.
Adjust the butt length accordingly if you want a longer or shorter leader. For heavier lines (8 wt plus) start with 40 lb and you might want to drop to a 25 lb butt for 4wt and less.
I like to loop the last section of the taper with a small double surgeons loop and loop the tippet as well creating a loop to loop connection for tippet to leader. This allows you to change tippets numerous times without affecting the leader configuration.
When building the leader, I like to use same brand for the 3 taper sections, ie, I have used maxima, ande, triple fish, hard mason and rio for mono leader materials,,,, and I really like seaguar FC blue label leader for fluorocarbon. Since I loop the tippet on, the tippet section can be any type of material as I do not need to worry about knot slippage with a loop to loop connection.
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