Leger

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the French artist and filmmaker, see Fernand Léger.

For Saint Leger, see Leodegar.

Leger, sometimes ledger, is a term used in angling to describe a method of fishing with a static weight to which the bait is attached. The weight counteracts the buoyancy of the bait and line which permits bottom fishing. Leger, sometimes ledger, is a small line immediately above or below the musical staff to contain a note such as middle C on the leger line just below the a staff with a treble clef, or an octave higher than concert A, or Hi A on the highland bagpipe, just above the staff with a treble clef.

[edit] Etymology

There are two schools of thought about how the word became used in angling. One says that ledger is correct because this can be any object, such as a book for logging items, left in the same place. Many other anglers favour the idea that the origin is the French word 'leger,' meaning 'light'. The theory for ledger is that early static weight angling used a very heavy lead weight which was simply lowered into the water with a stout pole, and examined periodically for fish which had taken the bait and hooked themselves.

Other authorities maintain that the term was coined for sport fishing, anglers having discovered that a lighter weight than that in popular use - the leger - enabled the angler to feel when a fish was plucking at the bait, and a sudden pull on the rod - the 'strike' - would then drive the hook into any fish, including bigger fish which had become adept at removing the bait from a heavy weight without hooking themselves. English angling writers for some 50 years have favoured the 'leger' spelling.