leisenring lift

[William Anderson]

I love reading this thread. It really puts what we are doing here front and center and more than anything makes me want to grab my gear and get in the water. I can say I've experienced everything he's describing, just as he's describing it (other than the fly rolling along the bottom, not unless the stream is less than 2' deep ). This is such a fun little read.

Ariel, I can see if you're leading the fly with the rod (Czech style) you can provide a quick jerk for a hook set and ensure you don't lose your catch, but (and this is really something I have seen play out often this past season) with the fly being intercepted downstream (or anywhere from perpendicular to the angler and downstream) the most effective hook set is a confident lift of the rod. I've lost a lot of fish by giving a quick dry-fly hook set when I felt or saw the take, but I have missed fewer fish lately when I can keep my spurs from jangling and just lift into the take. I'll be the last to step in a conversation about the differences in hydrodynamics, aerodynamics or centrifugal forces (like the ones at play with a fly on a leader), but I have lost a lot of fish with the fly downstream and what feels like the fly being pulled out of the fishes mouth. I like the comment that the fish plays a large part in the hook up, no matter the angler's technique. For myself using a steady and confident lift to set the hook seems to have doubled my catch rate. That's worked for me, but we all have worked out our own methods and if it works, there's nothing to be said other than please share what works for you and say it often. I seem to require being told a thing a number of times.

w

[William Anderson]

Bob, I'd rather enjoy the text "as is" and not parse it too much. I will only further confuse what I picture JL to be doing on the water.

1. And unweighted soft hackle will not reach the bottom in moving water. Especially water moving fast enough to create a deadly curve.
2. Assuming he's at least 15-20 feet away from the fish (minimum), and casts 15-20 feet above the fish...he's not keeping a taut line with a high-sticking method from 40 feet I don't believe. He may, I couldn't do it with a 9' rod.
3. Saying the line is taut but not effecting the fly "one particle" just doesn't make literal sense to me. Somewhere like a straight line, with very little drag sounds more accurate.

I really have to read the text as having truth in spirit, but for me there seems to be a bit of fisherman's license in the telling. Very well could be some misunderstanding on my part, but when he claims to see a #16 Black Gnat tumbling along the bottom, bumpily bump, from 40 feet away in moving water without polarized glasses, it seems to fall on the side of trying to relay an important point, rather than provide something that can be perfectly reproduced. I would eagerly take correction on my impression of the reading, but I'm giving it high marks for style and I'm very happy to live with some contradictions. They don't bother me in the least.

w

[redietz]

We're also assuming that he's talking about fishing the Broadhead; but he could just as easily be talking about the Little Lehigh (there's a pool on that stream called "Big Jim's" for a reason) which is a limestone spring creek, and is much slower and clearer. (For that matter, there are a number of limestoners in the Allentown/Bethlehem area, such as the Monocacy and the Saucon, that he could be thinking of as well.) It changes the dynamics; you can certainly see a Black Gnat at some distance.

I agree with your point 2, assuming the fish is upstream. However, since this isn't clear from the published text, the fish could be just a few feet below him. Casting upstream 15-20 feet above it would entail no more than a rod's length of line and a nine foot rod, easily high sticked. (In fact, I've watched people fish the Little Lehigh in exactly that fashion, quite successfully.) Once we know that the fish is usptream, we can rule this out.

I agree that an unweighted fly isn't going to sink very far in 15-20 feet. However, in neither text does he say he's not using shot to get down. An ambiguity that wasn't cleared up. Of course, fishing a water logged silk line helps in this regard.

I totally agree with point 3, I view that not "one particle" to be the Platonic Ideal, never achieved in actual practice.

If I have time tonight or tomorrow, I'll post what Bergman had to say about fishing a wet. Surprisingly similar, except that the fish is downstream.

[hankaye]

Howdy All;

I glad that this thread hasn't died.... still to young to pass.

Lance , thanks for posting the quote from the original manuscript.
I've re-read it several times and had some time for it to 'process' in
the jumbled mess I call my brain.

What has me confused now is the contradiction between the first
and second paragraphs of the manuscript that Lance supplied for us.

1st. para. " 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. " huh ... , ?

2ed. para. " 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. " hummmmm,
Ok, Chinese Menu, options form Column A and Column B

I feel (my opinion), is that the 5th. para. gives some great insight as to what
JL's thoughts were regarding the process;

" The straight line, (similar to Czech style? ), 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. "

I can see where PH might have had a hard time deciding what to cut and what
to keep and make it intelligible and read smoothly.

Just my thoughts... ya'll's mileage may and most probably will vary ...

hank

[DUBBN]

" Now, above all things, when trout fishing learn to take your time, to think, and be quiet."

This statement has nothing to do with the actual "lift", but is probably the biggest key out of this thread to catching fish. Obviously walk quietly, but also talking and yelling can put fish down.

" 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."

I do not understand how he would know what that hackle is doing. Especially so precisely. I agree with him, but, I believe the hackle has already opened and closed every time the pattern goes up and over and piece of structure. By structure I mean rock, gravel bar, trench, etc.. If 90% of the fish are gathering/eating food on the river bottom, then I believe the nymph is at its deadliest prior to the "lift".

In my opinion more fish are taken when the pattern is bumping the bottom of the river when fishing blind than are taken on the rise. When sight fishing to trout, of course more fish will take the pattern on the rise if all you are doing is using the "lift". That being said, personally, I would give the trout a couple dead drifts and leave the pattern on the bottom before I attempted the lift.

The "lift" is a tool that I use to determine where in the water column the trout are feeding. Periodically through the day I will lift my nymph rig off the bottom just to see if the trout are taking emergers above the stream floor. If they are taking the bugs higher in the water column, I do not use the lift technique. I use a dry/dropper rig, or an indicator nymph rig adjusted to the depth I believe the trout are feeding at.

In my opinion getting the pattern at the correct feeding depth and keeping it there is more important than having the bug rise through the correct depth, and be in the target zone for a small amount of time.

I hope a video of the leisenring lift is done by a member of this forum. It would be interesting for me to compare it to how I remember my father fishing his Brown Hackle Peacock (Red tag) on the lift on the Provo River where he grew up. My father in-law was raised in Western Montana and used a similar technique to the leisenring lift, but almost exclusively used small weighted Woolly Worms. Neither men ever fished with the other, but both fished the "lift", at times.

Euro, Polish, Czech nymphing. Subtle differences in them, but I too let the rig swing up at the end of the drift. This in no way should be remotely considered the "leisenring lift", but, it is a great way to give trout that are suspended in the water column a shot at one of your offerings, and at the same time find that sweet spot where the fish are telling you that they want to feed at.

Blindly jerking your rig at the end of a drift? Unless you can physically see debris (moss, leaves, twigs, caddis cases etc..) on your hooks, and you trying to clear those hooks, jerking (blind hook set) should never be performed at the end of the drift. It is snagging.

I do not believe the leisenring lift was forgotten years ago as much as it was replaced by other techniques. I do believe there is a place for it in every fly fishers tool belt. Small rivers, and creeks where the average depth does not go deeper than a few feet. Small beaver ponds are another good place to use the technique.

There were other points about this post I wanted to make, but now I seem to have forgotten what they were. I better stop rambling about my opinions and get back to work.

[gingerdun]

This close reading is interesting. The fact is that James E. Leisenring was semi-literate, with an 8th-grade education. Plus, he grew up in a German home where neither German or English would have been spoken with much sophistication. I know from reading his letters that precision with language was difficult for him.

Bob, you wrote:

What you posted explicitly says that the trout is upstream of the angler.

But I don't read it that way. JL wrote:

I cast up and across the stream—about fifteen or twenty feet above that brute lying over there beside that stone.

This is vague. His cast could be as little as little as five feet upstream from the perpendicular line between the angler and the bank, and the trout could have been downstream 15 feet from the perpendicular.

My very tentative opinion is that it boils down to one simple fact: that a sunk fly that is dead-drifting looks dead (not deadly), and less desirable as food. As soon as the fly starts to drag against the current, it starts to look alive, behaving like a swimmer. There are a zillion ways to play this, depending upon current, depth, clarity, etc. But the drag (and lift) does not happen until the fly is downstream from the angler, unless the angler does the lift manually, rather than letting the current do it.

Now I defer to all the rest of you, who have so much more experience than I. Thanks for taking the time to think about this.

And Wayne, what you wrote makes complete sense. The Leisenring Lift is not the answer to everything.

[redietz]

His cast could be as little as little as five feet upstream from the perpendicular line between the angler and the bank, and the trout could have been downstream 15 feet from the perpendicular.

I agree. That was the part I always found ambiguous.

But, he also said:

If you look upstream now, watch that big brute over there.

The trout is upstream.

[Old Hat]

I don't agree that this says "upstream".

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.

It reads to me in context with the rest of the description...look upstream ( from the fish)...keep an eye on the fish...see the fly (upstream)..4 more feet and it will pass right by his snoot.

In context with everything else in the transcription, upstream just doesn't fit.

[Mataura mayfly]

I am not going to pretend I understand the guy better than anyone else.... especially those with family ties...... but.... I can see the upstream cast working.
As a rule of understanding (spoken as one that has never fished the U.S.) a lot of trout and trout streams over there are somewhat smaller than those here and from what I understand fish that may not be feeding in the upper zone can be induced to rise by well presented flies. Not that this has a lot to do with the lift- but it just helps explain to me that methods are often very different.
Now the upstream presentation and lift.
I could/can be done. I usually do so to known lies rather than actual individual fish and use an indicator to judge the position of the flies. What I find hard to accept is a direct upstream cast, where fish and fisher are in the same current line- both parallel to the bank..... unless the cast is of minimal line out past the rod tip and just leader length away. Over here, any line "over" the fish will send it scurrying for cover- opportunity lost. Now it is possible to cast upstream somewhat adjacent to the fish with the line, but still manipulate the cast to present the flies to a waiting trout. Line control and regather is paramount, timing so the flies sink, dead drift and arrive a few feet above the awaiting victim ready for the controlled lift- instigated by the fisher and rod lift.
Now there is talk of being able to see the fly and the fish during this entire process, so in my way of thinking the water is relatively calm- clear and shallow, the fisher is little more than leader length away from the fish and can see the fly during its downstream travels of the entire cast and be able to time the lift via fly sighting alone.

All very complicated really, but not impossible by any means. Drifting downstream a measured length cast to lift flies in front of a fish or obvious lie.... is a hell of a lot easier to do.

[Old Hat]

Leisenring makes the point though that the "Lift" is not really a lift. The rod is held "stationary", the lift naturally occurs from the tension the current puts on the line and fly. He is not lifting the fly, the tension on the rod from the water current is. He is just stopping the rod and holding it stationary. The only lifting is during the drift above the fish to keep the line slightly tight. There is no doubt we can cast upstream to the fish and present a fly. Its just not the "Leisenring Lift" Upstream in this manner is not possible unless your rod is longer than the line you have out including leader.

I'll come back to this in the morning. I just wrote a thesis on this with a diagram and lost the whole shebang because the site logged me out. Too tired to try it again.