Lead Lifts

[chuckaroo]

Following a recent post on the forum here, I have been wondering what 'lead lifts' were - how they work, and what their limitation were?
Can anyone advise please, or provide links to how they work?

The reason why I ask is that we had deadly problems with loosing a lot of gear and fish when reeling in over weedy underwater ledges recently, when fishing from a deep rock mark. Wondering if they would work under such a circumstance.

The recent post stated that:
"Use a long wire lead and on the wire make a plastic lead lift. This brings your lead and everything else above all the weed and rocks the faster you reel in the higher your gear will rise" (Thanks mickser for posting that)

thnx in advance

[chuckaroo]

Just a few links I found:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcj5YFxZWN4
http://www.whitbyseaanglers.co.uk/forum ... -work.795/
https://www.worldseafishing.com/forums/ ... s.1813403/

Has anyone on here tried them..?

[gearoid mc s.]

We fish a lot of rough down my way, and unfortunately there is no easy fix with the rough stuff.

Lead lifts are certainly down the order in terms of solution personally but certainly worth a go once to form your own opinion.

For me it's 25lb quality mainline to an extra length leader. Obviously a rod and reel up to the job too. RT Axellerator is pretty cheap for the amount of rod you get and you can abuse i all you want and then some. Ordering one soon which saves me dogging the better quality rods.

The biggest success for me was learning the spider hitch leader knot which is super strong and rips the gear out of the snag more often than not.

Get up high on the beach with rod tip in the air, wind down to take the slack then in a fluid motion lift hard and reel fast as you can until the lead comes off the bottom. You can slow the pace somewhat then with rig in mid-water as you are out of the danger zone.

But accept before you start you are going to lose a few rigs just preferably not with a fish on.

[ShaneH]

We fish a lot of rough down my way, and unfortunately there is no easy fix with the rough stuff.

Lead lifts are certainly down the order in terms of solution personally but certainly worth a go once to form your own opinion.

For me it's 25lb quality mainline to an extra length leader. Obviously a rod and reel up to the job too. RT Axellerator is pretty cheap for the amount of rod you get and you can abuse i all you want and then some. Ordering one soon which saves me dogging the better quality rods.

The biggest success for me was learning the spider hitch leader knot which is super strong and rips the gear out of the snag more often than not.

Get up high on the beach with rod tip in the air, wind down to take the slack then in a fluid motion lift hard and reel fast as you can until the lead comes off the bottom. You can slow the pace somewhat then with rig in mid-water as you are out of the danger zone.

But accept before you start you are going to lose a few rigs just preferably not with a fish on.

I’d second this plus lead lifts are just another component to get snagged when it’s on the bottom also your going to cut your distance when casting. The best way to fish the rough is to keep everything as simple as possible and do what gearoid said above.

[johnwest]

I have a couple of packets of lead lifts though I've never actually used them; I never got around to fishing the marks I got them for. I'll give you a couple the next time we meet up, if we manage to arrange it!

[donal domeney]

I have a couple of packets of lead lifts though I've never actually used them; I never got around to fishing the marks I got them for. I'll give you a couple the next time we meet up, if we manage to arrange it!

fitted about 4" above the hook they make a great attractor for flat fish from the boat

[eoghanb]

I always use them over rough ground ,especially good for getting above the snags on the retrieve,I just use some rubbery plastic,eg ice cream tub.just cut out kite shapes fold a bit lengthways then put a hole on each end and thread on the line above the weight they work a treat and cost nothing to make

[chuckaroo]

Thanks for the responses
Here is a diagram to illustrate the situation:

Untitled.png

The problem was getting the rig/fish up and over the underwater drop-offs on the retrieve. The red 'X's show where we were commonly getting snagged.

First off, we were not necessarily casting out onto a snaggy seabed; as I say, the problem was on the retrieve when trying to clear the drop-off ledges on the way in, which often had dense kelp patches along them. Once snagged it was almost impossible to get our stuff back, we lost a lot of gear and fish.

The issue as well was that we were hooking big fish (with the potential of hooking bigger) to include double figure cod and wolffish, and even bigger halibut, so we needed something that would get these heavier fish up as quickly as possible - things were made worse too of course when we would cast close-in to the bottom of the underwater cliff when targeting wolffish.

This is very deep water (100m+) and it was very difficult to retrieve over the snags using conventional rigs. We were fishing in Norway where a lot of the rock marks had these underwater drop-off, they seemed a common feature in this country's landscape and they make things very difficult. We wish to return and hope to be better prepared next time...

A lot of people swear by lead-lifts whereas other people say that they have their limitations; I am just wondering if they would work in this case, given the depth of water - they might well help with retrieving tackle from a distance and at a lesser angle in comparatively shallow water but there could be limitations in deep water, even more so when a big fish is attached above the lead.
A solution might be putting a lead-lift or some other device above the hook/fish?
Has anyone had experience under similar circumstances and come up with a solution?
Indeed, any ideas on a solution to the problem would be greatly appreciated.

And no smart craic about 'just getting onto a boat' lol, as we are there to mainly shore fish!


Thanks gearoid mc s. Yeah, appreciate the idea of lifting the slack and initially retrieving hard, must give this a go when I try out the lead-lifts. And yes, we were certainly using good line and good knots.
Thanks Shane H We weren't fishing rough ground as I say and we weren't too worried about distance. But I certainly agree with keeping the rig as simple as possible, defo not to use grip leads for starters at least, maybe even to use rotten-bottom rigs that would drop the weight if we got snagged on the way in..

fitted about 4" above the hook they make a great attractor for flat fish from the boat

The local Norwegian fishermen agree Donal. They insist that flatfish (esp. halibut) will quicker see something in the water above them than on the bottom, it makes sense. We were told how many halibut often come up into mid water and above to chase food, something flashy up the line can only help. Does the lead-lift work well when placed up the line and above the hook? would it lift the whole trace (and fish) up quickly do you know?

I always use them over rough ground ,especially good for getting above the snags on the retrieve,I just use some rubbery plastic,eg ice cream tub.just cut out kite shapes fold a bit lengthways then put a hole on each end and thread on the line above the weight they work a treat and cost nothing to make

Sounds good Eoghan, thanks. Do you think that they will work in this scenario though, especially with the given depth of water?

I have a couple of packets of lead lifts though I've never actually used them; I never got around to fishing the marks I got them for. I'll give you a couple the next time we meet up, if we manage to arrange it!

Thanks JW, can you bring them with you on Sunday..

sp020001.jpg

[eoghanb]

A lift that's about 1 inch wide by 2" long will lift a six ounce to the surface fairly quickly from about 30ft of water about twenty meters out ,depending on how quick u reel ,anyway try them out won't cost you anything

[eoghanb]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[chuckaroo]

The lead-lifts might be an option but the pole in this youtube video might be a another one? mind you, we'd need a longer one!.. :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpf9TZR9WV8

Any other ideas?

[chuckaroo]

We would need something 20feet in length to make the concept shown in the picture below work
Very impractical, but not impossible I guess
Still keen for someone to offer a better idea if they can think of one!
In the meantime, we will try the lead lifts - even though we are not convinced that they will work too well in this depth of water, let alone with a fish on the end of the line
Thanks in advance