Fountains of Youth – Classic trout flies that have withstood the test of time … flies that remain “forever young”

by Rusty Dunn

The winds of change are often gentle at first, but they freshen with time.  Little by little, old ideas fade away, replaced by new ones.  Only hindsight reveals when the transition actually occurred.  For wet fly fishing in America, the winds of change began in 1941 with publication of The Art of Tying the Wet Fly by James Leisenring.  This 81 page treasure introduced British-style soft-hackled flies and methods to American an­glers.  It was published just three short years after Ray Bergman’s 1938 blockbuster book Trout, which included a lengthy examination of wet fly fishing.  The col­ored plates of wet flies in Trout are truly mag­nificent.  Page after page, row after row, hundreds upon hun­dreds of brightly colored flies.  Legendary flies, such as a Leadwing Coachman, Parmachene Belle, and Green­well’s Glory.  Smartly dressed sol­diers in a vin­tage army, almost all of which were tied with down wings of matched quill slips.  Where are these flies today?  Mostly, they’re in the unturned pages of old fly tying books and the untraveled corners of old fly boxes.  The wet flies pictured in Trout are fossils of a bygone era.  Headstones of former champions.  Lei­senring brought a new style of wet fly to America, one as old as fly fishing itself.

“Big Jim” Leisenring (1878-1951) grew up in Allen­town, Pennsylvania.  A toolmaker by trade, he was tall, bronzed, and spoke with the heavy accent of his German ancestors.  He fished the limestone spring creeks of eastern Pennsylvania for over 40 years, all the while refining his knowledge, methods, and flies.  Leisen­ring studied the English and Scottish founda­tions of fly fishing and read the literature of its great pioneers.  But he did not slavishly follow their guid­ance.  Instead, he experimented with the ideas, modi­fied them based on his own experi­ences, and created a new syn­thesis for his home waters.

Leisenring kept decades of meticulous notes, but writ­ing did not come easily for him.  Fortunately, Leisenring’s friends coaxed the reluctant author into writing a brief but very im­portant book.  The title page credits “as told to V.S. Hidy” as co-author.  Vernon ‘Pete’ Hidy was a student of Leisen­ring’s who assisted Jim with the book’s preparation.  Leisen­ring supplied the genius, and Hidy supplied the clarity.  The Art of Tying the Wet Fly estab­lished a uniquely American wet fly tra­dition, causing Leisen­ring to be often called “The American Skues”.  The book’s impact was modest in 1941, because it ap­peared amidst the tur­moil of World War II.  A second edition published in 1971 with Hidy as co-author had much greater influence.

The Art of Tying the Wet Fly is, above all, a fly tying book.  Five short pages discuss wet fly fishing.  Those few paragraphs describe what has become known as “the Leisenring lift”, which Charles Brooks described as “probably the most deadly nymph method known“.  Like all great masters of the dark arts, Leisenring learned the im­portance of action and move­ment when fishing nymphs.  Leis­enring’s soft and feathery flies spring to life in moving water.  He was a wizard at se­duc­tively mani­pulating them before trout.  The lift was one of many presenta­tions that Leisenring devel­oped.  He always intended to write a second book on wet fly fishing, but time ran out before thoughts were re­duced to paper.  We are all poorer for its absence.  Fortu­nately, Pete Hidy sup­plied some of the details in a chapter he authored for the 1971 edition.  Addition­ally, Hidy’s 1960 book Sports Illustrated Book of Wet-Fly Fishing is an undiscovered gem that expands on Leisenring’s and his own wet fly methods.

James Leisenring was, indeed, a fly fishing pioneer.  He patiently observed trout and insects, studied the insights of old masters, refined his methods, and qui­etly shared his knowledge in an influential book rich with the experiences of an expert.  Big Jim never sought attention or the limelight, but he is one of America’s most original and creative anglers.

Copyright 2022, Rusty Dunn

Blue Dun Hackle (Leisenring)

Leisenring’s Blue Dun Hackle is especially useful dur­ing hatches of darkly colored mayflies, such as Blue-Winged Olives.  Lift it (à la Leisenring) in front of trout feeding deeply, or grease the leader and fish it near the surface to bulgers.