Lose Fewer, Catch More – Part 2

The L-rig Lose Fewer, Catch More – Part 2

Text and photos: Jens Bursell

Around half of the sea trout contacts on the Danish coast are lost on streamers. In 3/2011 Jens Bursell took a critical look at penetration and hook hold plus choice of hooks. In this issue he takes a look at tube flies and how new mountings, designed to maximize hook and gape exposure, depth of grip and penetration, can give you a higher landing rate.

mall and better superior penetration. How to convert slim, leaving the hook points and penetrating hooks does the penetration potential of small gape well exposed. not necessarily equate hooks into higher landing rates is the So why even think of fishing to landing more fish. subject of the next article in this series. your tube fly in a different way? The hook test in 3/2011 Even though many tube fly set-ups Sillustrates the relative difference in Tubeflies penetrate better and often give less penetration and strength of small/ leverage than the same size of fly thin vs large/thick hooks, but as Step one in avoiding losing fish. It tied on a big single hook, I believe such it says nothing about the actual is wise to change from a streamer there is still room for improvement - landing rates of the specific hooks. to a tube fly enabling you to take especially in terms of The dimensions and pattern of the advantage of small trebles or 1) getting a better exposure of the hook combined with the way you doubles. This results in a much lower hook and maximizing the chance mount and fish it has a major impact percentage of lost fish, as long as the of getting a better grip in the first on realizing the full potential of the tube fly you use is relatively small and place and

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therefore negated. In other words; you might end up losing more than you win. But when mounting the small treble off the central axis of the fly it is possible to use much smaller and sharper hooks, without compromising the exposure. The result of this is that you can now choose the most effective hook size as a choice, independent of the actual size, diameter and construction of the fly. This is not possible in the same way with conventional tubefly-set ups, where the hook is normally mounted close to the main body of the fly.

Getting the grip

I have found out, that a very easy way to get a good asymmetric exposure of the small hook is simply to mount the small treble loosely hinged in a bloodloop. The advantage you get by using this knot instead of the Rapala The L-rig also works for big dryflies tied on tube. This P & T rainbow fell for a knot is that the blood-loop creates a grasshopper foam fly fished with a size 16 treble. 90 degree angle between the tippet

and the loop, giving a much better a) The original 2) taking advantage of the better off the central axis of the fly. Often, dominant shrimp species, as in the Pattegrisen. exposure of the small treble. This is exposure to use even much smaller it is an advantage to mount the famous fly Pattegrisen. b) Pattegrisen tied on a) because it sits further away from the hooks, which penetrate better. hook loosely dangling in a small These flies are so big and thick a tube with a size central axis of the fly; with help from 16 treble mounted fixed loop, as the hook will find a that you will start losing fish if you gravity, the hook will always hang with normal The perfect good hold this way. mount a size 16-18 treble at the end hookguard – note down just under/behind the fly. 2) The negative leverage-effect must of the tube. As clearly illustrated in the bad exposure. The best pricking and deepest hook exposure b) be minimized or even better - the photo opposite page, the gape c) Pattegrisen grip you will achieve by maximizing fished with a My experience is that if you want eliminated. and points of the hook will be in the the distance between the hook point L-rig and size 16 to take full advantage of very small physical shadow of the body of the treble: All three and the axis of the fly (obviously, with hooks, you must follow these rules: Small hooks fly. When the points don’t stick well gapes are 100% the proviso that the hook must get exposed, giving 1) The small hook must be mounted out, the risk that they don’t get a c) well inside the mouth every time you on big flies a deep grip in the in such a way so as to ensure that grip in the first place will increase. get a bite). My experience is that the flesh. The size 16 points and gapes are completely Visual impact, search efficiency, or If too small a proportion of the gape penetrates 2-3 optimal distance between the point exposed. With most flies, over 3-4 the need for a specific prey imitation, is exposed, the hook will not grip as times better than on the lower branch and main body of cm long and a thickness over 2-3 often dictates flies of a certain size deeply as it could have, had the gape the streamerhook the fly (or lure) is 1-1,5 cm when the (a) (3/2011). mm, this often implies that the or thickness. A good example, on the been fully exposed. The penetration shank of the hook lies parallel to the hook is mounted asymmetrically Danish coast, is a fly imitating the advantage of the small hook is fly. The precise distance is adjusted

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when fishing and optimized to the preventing the hook from swinging foraging pattern of the day. If you back in the loop and snagging on the loose a fish (which rarely happens), fly. This is the variant of the L-rig I make the loop a bit shorter and find best for most purposes with larger experiment until you have the right flies. length. Deeper grip L-rig – the simple way – better penetration and hook hold The simplest version is to tie the small treble into a blood-loop and I believe getting a deeper grip on the then adjust the length of the loop jaw also means maximizing the chance when tightening the knot. The perfect that both point and barb will penetrate, length of the loop depends on the because the deeper you go on the jaw size and type of fly. The thicker the – the thicker is the penetrable layer. diameter of the fly, the more the loop Or in other words – the advantage of must stand out from the central axis. smaller hooks is not only a question of This variant works well for getting a better penetrating hook, but

A typical wakefly used for nightfishing after sea trout mounted sparsely dressed and/or small flies also using a hook where the distance on a L-rig with a simple blood-loop. made out of stiff materials, where the from point to barb is shorter than the hook will rebound if it swings round thickness of the penetrable layer. in the loop. If the hook tends to hang Its logical that your chance of up on the fly, you can chose to simply getting a deep grip in the flesh or jaw dislocate the hook backwards a bit is proportional to the free exposure of by pushing the power gum stop knot the hook point and hook gape. This between the blood-loop and rear end is also one of the main advantages of of tube further up the tippet, as you do The Hair Rig – used by millions of carp with traditional trailing hooks from anglers around the world as the most tube flies. effective standard method to secure If the blood-loop is thinner than good hooking and hook holds. the diameter of the tube, you must put The underlying reason why x a transparent powergum-stop knot sea trout on the open coast can be (y), a floatstop or the like between so difficult to hook is essentially the y bloodloop and end of tube, so you same as the reason why its difficult avoid the knot being dragged into the to hook the fish on “The dangle” tube, deforming the important angle when fly fishing in rivers: They are of the knot. pricked on straight line. Our results with traditional mountings vs minute L-rig with stop knot trebles mounted asymmetric, based on over 1600 sea trout contacts,

When fishing the L-rig with a hookguard orientating the fly – I prefer using stop When using more heavily dressed clearly suggest that the problem of jaw knot of elastic powergum (y), when semifixing the hookguard. This is an elegant flies, it is an advantage to use a hooking on straight line can be solved way to semifix the fly to the rig – and an effective and visually delicate way to larger loop standing even further very effectively with set-ups such as the adjust the distance between hook and fly. The friction of the knot can be adjusted out from the fly and tie a small stop L-rig, or other related rigs such as the with the amount of turns on the knot. 4-5 turns Is normally sufficient for short soft knot (x) made from clear 7 lbs elastic release-rig described in the next casting and 6-8 turns is sufficient for more powerful casting. powergum (fx Gardner) on the loop, issue.

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How to Why not tail tie a L-rig stingers instead of L-rig? with stop- railing hooks or sting- Ters is another way of getting the hook out of the knot “physical shadow” of the main body of the fly, so it´s possible to use smaller hooks. Quite a few do Step Step Step Step this on the coast; many 1 – Thread the tippet through the 2 – Make the start of a 4-turn 3 – Finish and tighten the stop 4 –Continue tying the blood- in the hope of avoiding eye – and lay it parallel back along the stop knot with a 10-12 cm piece of knot, slide it down and create a small loop by twisting the end of the tippet- “tail biters”. But my ex- tippet. transparent 7 lbs powergum over the semi-fixed loop. end five times round the tippet. perience is that in 90% of the situations where peo- parallel tippet. ple loose fish they suspect to be tail biters, they are actually not lost because of tail bites but because of bad penetration from streamer hooks. Most often, the fish bite at the front/centre of the fly, and when doing this it often results in bad hooking, if there is only one hook situated at the very end of the tail. Anoth- er problem is dislocat- ing the hook too far backwards on fx Pattegrisen makes it sink in an un- natural way. In order to make the fly sink in a horizontal position, the Step Step Step Step hook must be much clos- 5 – Open the middle turn with 6 – Push the hook through the 7 – Moisten the knot - and 8 – A fly with a L-rig stop-knot. er to the centre of the fly, your right thumb nail. middle turn. adjust the length of the blood-loop as with the L-rig. Last- when tightening the knot. ly, trailing hooks produc- es more tangles than the L-rig. ■

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Displaced point of gravity

hen fishing asymmet- Wric tubeflies such as fx shrimp imitations, mounting the small treble off the central axis of the fly ensures (with the help of gravity) the right orientation of the fly. This is not always possible with a normal symmetrical end- mounting. With the L-rig you can orientate the fly correct- ly in the water, without need- ing to add extra weight in the lower part, causing the fly to sink faster than desired.

a) Traditional tube-fly mounting. b) The L-rig.

Advantages of the L-rig

The L-rig is a simple and good hook mount. In some situations such as On tubeflies, where the tube mountings. In the next issue, I will sea trout fishing on the coast, where runs symmetrically through the take a look at how you can achieve, you let the fish run because it stays in middle of the fly, all gapes will with a simple modification of tube flies the surface, you rarely find yourself normally be 25-35% masked with the and flies tied on hooks, an even higher in difficult hook and hold situations. traditional hook guard mountings, landing ratio, than is possible to obtain Here the L-rig enables you to enhance but with a L-rig all the hook points with the L-rig. With this technique, the penetration in the region of 50- are 100% exposed all the time, The Release Fly, a combination of 100% by dropping from a tube fly optimising the chance of hooking asymmetric hook-exposure and with a size 10-12 hook to a tube fly fish and obtaining a deep grip in the eliminated negative leverage-effect with L-rig and a size 16-18 – without jaw at the same time. See detailed and will enable you to improve catch risking losing big fish. Using hooks macrophotos of this at www.bursell. rates in the region of 50-200%, of this size on asymmetric hook dk in the article “Maximizing the compared to what its possible to obtain mountings, we have caught loads of gape exposure”. with fx traditional streamers, and sea trout up to 80 cm and have not other large flies fished on a straight experienced a single hook breaking Eliminating line. ■ or straightening out. Compared to negative leverage streamers of the same size Making an effective tandem rig on very longtailed flies such as this sand eel – it is possible to enhance the The L-rig is not perfect as it gives imitation is easy with the L.-rig. Just leave the end of the tippet after finishing the penetration by as much as 100-200% almost the same low-moderate bloodloop and mount a minute treble fx sz. 16-18 at the end of the tail with the L-rig. leverage effect as traditional tube fly

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