leisenring lift

[William Anderson]

Lance shared as aspect included in Hayter's book on Skues. It may be of interest to those reading this thread.

http://www.flymphforum.com/viewtopic.ph ... ift#p66217

Ariel, thanks so much on the Go Pro offer, if I thought I would follow through in a timely fashion I'd jump at the offer to borrow it for an outing. These days I make promises in a limited way and usually with disclaimers. But stability is in the near future and I will likely send you a note. .

[hankaye]

Howdy All;

More on the "Deadly Curve" from our past posts...
http://www.flymphforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5533

Well, thud ( ...sound of another book hitting the table top , ),
I've got the Hayter book as well, in the bit quoted by Lance on pg. 157,
it starts out with 3 more words "Two decades later," ... then the rest of Lance's quote.

"...in a 1935 number of the Journal of the Flyfishers' Club, Mottram extended the scope of this tactic into something resembling the Leisenring Lift, a technique, as with many others in angling, which may have been re-invented several times. He wrote:"

The leaded nymph is often far more attractive than the unleaded, because with it you can imitate the rising of a nymph from the bottom. To do this, oil the gut and line to within two feet of the fly, cast well above and a little beyond the trout, allowing the whole to drift down to the fish without drag. As it passes the fish, gently draw on the line, causing the nymph to ascend through the water in imitation of a natural, and if all goes well the trout will follow it up and take it."

Apparently, the good Dr. had published his thoughts about casting up and across and
elevating the cast as it approached the fish in question in his book "Fly Fishing: Some
New Arts & Mysteries, 1915", (don't have it ...yet), a whole 25 years before the JL & PH
books came out and 6 years before Skeus' "The Way of a Trout with a Fly" in 1921 but 5
years after Skues' first book and I haven't yet finished that one to see if there is or isn't
(doubtful, given Skues' attitude about dragging flies) any mention about using any type
of inducements.
Mr. Hayter's dialogue about Dr. Mottram starts on pg. 155 of the Skues book and covers
the the rest of the chapter, ending on pg. 159 including some of Skues' comments about
the method describing it as a "dragging" method. Needless to sat They did not collaborate
but stayed each to his own ... shame about that.

hank

[gingerdun]

Friends,

Your MIA comrade is trying now to make up for his absence.
Here is the transcription from the Leisenring MS at Yale regarding the Deadly Curve, AKA the Leisenring Lift. This is the unedited version that Pete had to trim down to fit into the book.

See that big fellow lying over there? I cast up and across the stream—about fifteen or twenty feet above that brute lying over there beside that stone. Now see the fly sinking down to the bottom of the stream? Watch how it goes along there right on the bottom. You see, it has come down along on the bottom about three feet and it is still on the bottom going toward the trout. The fly is not efficient or deadly yet—not until it reaches and passes that big fellow you see lying there. Although you can make it become deadly now or any time you choose to do s0, we want to wait until it has passed him. Watch how I follow my fly with the rod, keeping the rod well up. I am keeping my line tight or straight, going with the water and the fly rolling along on the bottom. The line is taut, but it is not pulling on the fly one particle.

Watch this. Your fly must come straight down to him bump de bump on the gravel and over the stones on the bottom with the current, heading right at him. Now watch, our fly is almost there. You see we are standing on this side of the stream, the right hand side. If you look upstream now, watch that big brute over there. Now get ready. See the fly? Four more feet and it will pass right by his snoot. If it did and kept going down the stream it would not become deadly, and he probably wouldn’t look at it. But the fly won’t pass by him. Can you see how the line is becoming a little tighter and the water is slowly lifting the line and fly? Now the fly is starting to become slightly efficient, or animated, and deadly. See that baby sizing up the fly? Can you see what the fly is doing? The hackle or legs are starting to work, moving open and closed, or what you might call breathing. Can you see the trout backing down the stream and watching the fly? He is not quite persuaded, but he is still following it along. Now you can see the fly become more deadly as more water flows against the line and fly, lifting them higher off the bottom. The hackles are breathing or working faster. Look, the current is swinging the fly up and away from the trout. The hackles are working like hell now in every fiber. The fly looks like it will jump out of the water in a minute. Look, he’s coming for it. He’s got it. Bang! Here Pete, take the rod and show me what you do to handle a big fish after you have him solidly hooked. Oh hell, if you lose him, what do I care? I got my supper in my basket—and if you lose him we know where there is a big one the next time we come back.

I have tried to explain what I mean by the point or the place where a fly becomes most deadly. It starts to become deadly when the fly rises off the gravel and stones on the bottom of a stream. At this point the water pressure against your line causes the fly to rise slowly and also starts the hackles to open and shut, or breathe, as a natural insect would do when leaving the bottom of the stream to come to the surface. Your line and fly also start to swing into a curve, coming toward your side of the stream in a gentle curve. But the more it comes, the more your fly comes towards the surface, and the more a fly with the proper hackles will breathe. Now any time after your hackles start to breathe your fly starts to become deadly and the more it comes and breathes (this is done naturally by the water, and by you holding your rod stationary) the deadlier it becomes, until your fly has continued the swing-over curve to its end.

Your fly in this curve, or swing-over, is where it is the deadliest, whether there is a fish or not. It is the breathing or life-giving qualities that cause it to be deadly. I do not try to put any fancy movements to my fly with my rod, but let the fly float down gently, bump de bump over the stones and gravel. When the line starts the curve or swing around towards my side, the water will do all that is required to make a well-tied fly the most deadly thing to a trout that ever was in the shape of an artificial trout fly. Now, if my deadly curve as I call it is any charm or secret I honestly never intended it to be. Neither did I begrudge it to any angler.

The straight line, where your fly travels along on the bottom to where it starts to make this curve, also produces results. But if you will watch and pay attention, most of your trout have been caught after the fly and line have started their deadly swing. When fishing I always think of my trout laying at a certain spot, and try and start my curve when my fly is just about to pass my trout or the place where I think a trout is, or should be. This now is the only thing I claim—that I practice—that makes my fishing successful. So, here you have it, secret and all. As I have never seen anything about this method of fishing or ever heard of it, either in fly or nymph fishing, I will claim it as Leisenring’s Deadly Curve in fly fishing, or Point of Deadliness.

Now, above all things, when trout fishing learn to take your time, to think, and be quiet. This you must do to be a successful angler. If you discover anything in your fishing experience, pass it along and don’t be selfish, as selfishness doesn’t become an angler.

[Old Hat]

OK, you're forgiven.

[Jerry G]

Thank you Lance for coming to the recue and all the rest of you "Flympher's" for helping make this an enjoyable few days of pondering the Leisenring Lift. As mentioned it will be spring before I can test any of what I have read here. It isn't that I doubt any of what has been explained but more so whether I will be able to replicate what I have read. Again many thanks to all.

Regards, Jerry

[hankaye]

gingerdun, Howdy;

Wow, reading the original, sure puts a different light (small amount of wattage),
and without the editing, appears to almost read differently. Same information
but with more of it and much more explicit. Now I can almost "see" what is
transpiring, fishing in shallow clear water to a sighted fish. Hope your Dad
brought "that big brute" in for his supper.
Now my curiosity is wetted about what other tasty bits-n-pieces got left on
the cutting room floor ...
This has been a terrific discussion, haven't had to dig in to some books looking for
specific things in several years. That were fun!

hank

[redietz]

Lance --

Thank you very much for posting that. It clears up the ambiguity that's had me scratching my head for decades.

[gingerdun]

Lance --

Thank you very much for posting that. It clears up the ambiguity that's had me scratching my head for decades.

Hi Bob,
Would you mind telling us which ambiguity it cleared up for you?
Lance

[fflutterffly]

The set motion is clearer with all this input. Thanks Lance for the inclusion of text. But I thought the Leisenring Lift was a directly upstream cast, not and across cast.

As for the induced set... Raurd you make a good point. However, I see induced as a deliberate hard set at the end of the drifting motion, as in a direct induced set in Czech nymphing where I give a very soft quick jerk (what is a better word then jerk) at the end of my line lead. As most know, in Czech nymphing you are leading the fly ever so easy, not simply drifting it, causing the line to travel taut. This is why it is so deadly! (Interestingly enough I use a heavy weighted flymph style fly when employing European nymphing and it works great through pocket waters.)

If I may an analogy: We are driving in a car, window down, hand out the window. The hand is perpendicular to the road, the air flowing over and under the hand equally. This represents a dead drift. If we tilt the hand ever so slightly up we get resistance, representing a bit of drag, like an airplane wing, and lift is induced, rather natural and to me how a fly 'lifts' in a swing at the end of the cast. A hard set or induced set IMHO be when you suddenly put the hand at a 45˚ or more and you can feel the sudden force of the air pressure, in our case water pressure 'jerks the hand.' This makes the fly more upward quickly and sets a pursuing opened mouth fish. Let's face it... if you take the fish at the end of any drift, taut or soft, that fish had already followed, decided to take the fly, must have it's mouth open and fly proximity in the fish. If this weren't so we would be foul hooking the fish. The fish is at least 50% of the equation, it must participate by doing it's part in taking a fly. The act of inducing a take can not force the fish mouth to open, it simply IMO nudges the fish to pursue harder and finalizes the instinct for an escaping meal. Isn't that the whole point?

Now you engineers out there don't so bloody literal and bark at me... it's just the way I see it.

[redietz]

Hi Bob,
Would you mind telling us which ambiguity it cleared up for you?
Lance

It's unclear in The Art .. etc whether the trout is upstream of the fisherman or down. If the latter, "the lift" is either casting up stream to allow the fly to sink and when it gets past, timing a swing to begin where the fish is, or it's a glorified high sticking technique. If the former (the fish is upstream) it's a much more active lift. What you posted explicitly says that the trout is upstream of the angler.

It also explicitly states that the line is "tight or straight" and "taut" , which, at least to me, is somewhat different than "allowing no slack in the line." (The latter can accomplished, if the fly has passed to downstream, by keeping a right angle in the line; the line isn't straight, but there's no real slack in it either. This also supposes that the fish is downstream, which it clearly isn't.)