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 flyfishermann1955 |
Leisenring & Hidy's Book: The Art of Tying the Wet Fly and Fishing the Flymph |
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Posts: 138 04/20/2008 18:35 |
I think this book was originally written in the early 40s (The Art of Tying the Wet Fly) by Leisenring and then re-released in 1971 with Hidy's
additional information on Fishing the Flymph. I'm looking for comments/opinions about the book's value to you as a fly tyer.
Thanks- Ken |
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slw |
Leisenring | #1 | ||
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Posts: 69 04/21/2008 09:41 |
At the time I bought my first copy of the '71 edition, the information it contained was quite valuable to me. Things have changed since then with other
authors (Nemes and Hughes come to mind) having written their own books on the subject of wingless and winged wet flies. And then there's the internet.... I
wouldn't consider the Leisenring/Hidy book(s) essential for today's fly tiers if all they want to know is how to tie a fuzzy wet fly, but they do
contain some fine essoterica on the subject of tying wax, plumage, and fur/hair.
If you haven't visited it yet you might want to take a look at: http://flymph.com/index.html |
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 Gnome |
#2 | |||
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Posts: 1532 04/21/2008 10:17 King of the Gnomes |
The best part of that book is the instruction on performing the "Leisenring Lift" properly. and also the dubbing techniques are pretty good too.
Jeff |
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dry side |
#3 | |||
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Posts: 27 05/10/2008 12:50 |
The Leisenring/Hidy book is interesting, but Dave Hughes' wet fly book is much better from a more modern prespective. He builds on their work and explains
and updates the ideas, both tying and fishing. Dave interviewed Hidy years ago. He gives the two older men all the credit they are due and expands on the
foundations they laid.
Richard |
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mwleapjr |
Values | #4 | ||
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Posts: 5 05/14/2008 16:21 |
Thanks for the interesting posts. I found a copy of the reprint from Anglers Art in the early 80's and what I learned then from it proved to be a
signifciant source of pleasure for my fly fishing over the years. And I finally learned why my poorly tied flies (tied on cheap webby hen feathers from my
Herters intro tying kit) worked so well, including bringing strikes on the lift at the end of the drift! And choosing over the years to be more or less an
'unscientific angler" (small tan mayfly, large black caddis) those flies have been constants for me, especially when my occasional 'match the
hatch' efforts with more imitative flies don't work. That said, the main value of the soft hackle fly and the early books on them now is the link to
the past that those and other wet flies bring, especially when fished on bamboo fly rods. Just writing that makes me want to rig up and cast a 'brace'
of flies down and across with the old Heddon...
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flyfishermann1955 |
#5 | |||
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Posts: 149 11/17/2008 20:35 |
I appreciate everyone's comments. On Saturday, I picked up a copy of Leisenring's book from the Classified Section. Dave Hughes' book on Wet Flies is also on my Christmas wish list.
Thanks again- Ken |
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1JAD |
#6 | |||
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Posts: 3 11/17/2008 23:50 |
I thought it was a good read ,had some interesting information on different color hen necks and what necks to use for
different patterns .
John |
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narcodog |
#7 | |||
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Posts: 148 11/18/2008 00:31 |
The Leisenring Hidy, book holds the same status as the Dettes, Darby and as other mid century tiers and fly design innovators. To say that Hughes, Magee and
Nemes are better than the previously mentioned is like saying that Rubin Cross was better than Gordon. Hughes and Nemes exponded on the works of L & H.
they have better (newer) materials to work with. Along with more up to date research techniques. If you talk with such tiers as Jim Slattery, William Anderson
and many others you find out that L & H are at the top of the list for innovation and development for a particular fly pattern. Many new fly fishers and
tyers have not done research into the history of what they fish with nor tie. Many flies that are tied today are remakes of flies tied centuries ago or just
years ago with new materials. As most seasned fly fishers now there are many flies introduced every year that are ment to catch the fisher person and not so
much as the fish. Read the book and if you paid less that $75.00 you got a real bargin and that others will pay you more for it than you paid.
After all of this rambling what I am saing is that it is an important piece of fly fishing literature. |
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Eric Peper |
#8 | |||
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Posts: 36 11/18/2008 09:51 |
narcodog wrote:Very . . . very . . . well said. Exactly my thoughts when I read the remarks about later books being "improvements." EP |
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joaniebo |
#9 | |||
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Posts: 1673 11/18/2008 10:51 |
Robert
I agree totally with what you've stated! As you know, I have the Leisenring & Hidy book, Dave Hughes' book on wet flies / soft hackles and all of Nemes' books on soft hackles. All are good readings and have lots of good info but (and it's a BIG BUT), the Leisenring & Hidy book is an "original" and has lots of great information written from personal experiences with little info taken from "other sources." To me, it's one of the great "how-to books". In some of the more modern books on soft hackles / wets, there can also be lots of original info (if you read carefully) but I have found quite a few instances that the "info taken from other sources (books / articles)" was not 100% accurate, especially some of the dressings for the old patterns. Take for example almost any "modern book" that talks about a "Tup's dubbing" where most of the pics / dressings call for a decidedly PINK dubbing. Awhile back, on this forum, there were several postings about the real colors and mixtures to make an authentic repro of the original color of a Tup's dubbing ... and, I believe, in the Leisenring & Hidy book, the dressing and color of the Tup's is one heck of a lot closer to the original Austin color than is stated in several more modern books. In line with what you (Robert) have just posted and as I state quite often "Every year I see catalogs where another 50 or so new trout flies have been introduced but I haven't yet read that the good Lord has made another 50 new insects!" The old dressings work and slight adaptations of the old dressings .... usually due to the inability to get certain restricted or obsolete materials .... are in keeping with the tradition, the craft and the intentions of the original dressings and their tyers .... at least in this old Bohunk's opinion. Best Bob |
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creakycane |
#10 | |||
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Posts: 1908 11/18/2008 11:40 |
From a utilitarian standpoint, they are all adequate, and having two or three books on soft hackles will allow for effective imitation.
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rstrouts |
#11 | |||
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Posts: 40 12/14/2008 16:44 |
flyfishermann1955 wrote: The primary tidbit I learned from the book is Leisenring's use of upland game, chicken hens and chicken rooster for their stiffness or softness in relation to the current speed, or lack thereof, my strategies of up and downstream fishing presentations, to simulate the behavior of the natural and how I can use them as wets, damps and dries. That idea governs and is very important in my hackle material selection. Plus, and I'm not sure if I got this from L's book or Hughes books or FFman mag articles, I learned that L dubbed lightly, maybe a touch dubbing, and used the silk, I believe, thread to form two life stages, say, the inner dun body (thread) and the outer nymph body (dubbing). The silk, as I recall, and it's been a while since I read the book so I could be mistaken, was used by L for its translucent, lifelike quality and, if memory serves, was a different color than the dubbing, again, to get the life stages. It was important to him, I believe, that he show two life stages. I also got from the book his use of onstream tying to best match what was going on at the time of fishing and used a method of rolling the dubbing on his leg by using proportionate dubbing amounts to get the taper. While I don't tie onstream, I keep all these ideas in mind when tying L's patterns, or other hackle flies, for that matter. If L read fishing books, and if he read/communicated beyond Skues, he may have gotten the idea of using different hackles to assist up or downstream current behavior from Stewart's earlier book "A Practical Angler" that frowned on softer hackles for downstream fishing because of their characteristic of collapsing and, thus, losing "Life", when fishing them downstream. Stewart liked using softer hackles when upstream fishing. And, yes, Creakycrane, all the authors you mention help to solve the wet fly puzzle. However, Leisenring gives a distinctly, though not necessarily unique, American perspective. |
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mmorris236 |
#12 | |||
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Posts: 235 12/15/2008 14:36 |
I have been picking up a lot of older books from the 1960 thru 1970's era and what I find fascinating is the emergence of the concept that wet flies are
not drowned adults. Books on "fuzzy" nymphs and fishing techniques including the "lift" for catching trout prior to the hatch or even
during the hatch were common as was the concept of "swimming" nymphs. Looking at this raft of literature from my 2008 vantage point it is fascinating
to follow the heated debates over what was then a radical new way to fish.
Of course what was really happening (as we all now know) was the slowly developing discovery of the importance of emergers in a trouts diet. From that single realization came much of the soft hackle theory of today, and because of that revelation the Flymph belongs in every serious fishing library, right next to Your Modern Dry Fly Code and LaFontaines Caddis flies work. Everyone on this board uses the concepts from these books almost everytime we fish. They are so common, so essential and so universal that it is hard to think each was a radical and hotly debated departure from angling tradition only 40 years ago. I also remember in the early seventies, after that 1971 edition came out it was so widely distributed and popular you could not give a copy away. |
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