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Here is a wet fly that I tyed that is found in Ken Sawada's book. Please excuse me on the head. I only applied one coat of cement and took the picture. The fly was fisnished off later that evening. I really like some of the flies found in Ken Sawada's book.
http://i462.photobucket.com/albums/q...lk_white_3.jpg
this is a beautiful fly ,You do nice work fontnailis ,what is the name of that book .I love traditional wet flys . Who taught you ?
Fontinalis,
That fly could not be tied more perfect than that. I am very impressed with your wet flies. Do you ie all of your flies with the same level of perfection?
Nutman:
The book is by Ken Sawada and is titled Wet Fly's 400 Patterns and Techniques. Another Wet fly book far as patterns and painted color plates is Trout by Ray Bergman. I am currently reading The soft Hackled wet fly by Slyvester Nemes. I first was self taught and was tying these wet flies as a new fly tyer a lonf time ago. I looked at pattern books like The universal Fly Tyer by Dick Stewart and American Fly Tying Manual by Dave Hughes, Flies for Trout by Dick Stewart & Farrow Allen and lastly Flies the Best One Thousand by Randly Scott Stetzer. I would sit down at my kitchen table and look at the pictures of the flies and then start tying them. Honestly when I look back I did pretty well. Well tying for The Catskill Fly Tyers Guild at the International Fly Tying Symposium a fellow Guild member and now friend introduced me to Don Bastian. Don took a look at the wet flies I was tying and gave me a few tricks and techniques to do. Also that show I seen Don's flies and was inspired to get to his level. A year later I showed Don my work and he was impressed and then informed me of his weekend long fly tying class held at the fishing Creek Angler in Benton PA, Well I attended that class and two more after that, Do nand I have formed a good friendship and bond. Now a bunch of years later I have developed my own style and techniques that match my skills and still achieves the desire look.
Aaron:
I tye all my fishing flies and flies that I sent to people as if they were for show only. I hate ugly looking flies that come off my vise and at times have a razor blade taken to the bad ones so they can be tied correctly. The fly pictured took me 25 minutes to tye. After tying one or two I can acheive the same fly in 10 minutes. What happened here is I seen this fly and never tyed it before. So I always take a little more time with it. The first fly I tied of this pattern looked great, but when I tyed the fly that you are looking at, I went for perfection. Tonight I am going to tye something completely new. This type of tying is totaly fun and relaxing to me. Lastly I love to tye these flies at shows and instruct and explain to people what I am doing and why. Lastly I think I already told you once that I fish these classic wet flies in size 6 and size 8 and due quite well up in the Catskills, NJ (KLG, Peaquest, BFB) and in PA.
I find it interesting that you do so well with the large wets during the daylight. I do very well with sizes 4-6 when fishing at night. Many of your ties(that I have seen) have a very slender profile. Maybe that's one reason why the larger sizes work?
Fontinalis-
Love to know more about how you fish your beautiful wets, I find it interesting you do well fishing such large sizes in daylight. I'm sure you mix it up, but are you actively manipulating them, dead-drifting, swinging, skittering on top, etc.? Fishing 2 or 3 at a time? What type of leader set-up & rod? Are you only targeting the faster, broken water, or are you fishing the pools with the big wets also? I guess I'm also wondering if you are fishing them more as wet flies, or more like mini streamers.
Fontanalis,
Which by the way guys is the name of a pattern( for those of you who didnt know . Thanks for the info ,Ive been planning on framing the one fly you seen out in the fly swap .I met Don years ago and was completely taken by his wet flys . Are most of the wing materials mallard ? are you using turkey .I consider these to be the classic wet fly . They imitate alot of things ,the reason they arent popular is because they are hard to tye . Ive done enough wing marrying now ,that I know I can do them .Don told me he used mallard wings for this .He also showed me the trick fore tying in the wings . ;)
I havent picked up bermans book yet but it is on my list .Im chasing fishing equitment at the moment ,this sport is to expensive ,but I love it . I have to get don video to .
Id also love to hear some more about how they are fished .
I Read something along time ago how these patterns out fished dry flys back in the old days and the dry fly fishermen said it was cheating .
Nymphmeister:
I fish with size 6 & size 8 exclusively in NJ, Catskills and getting into PA. First please keep in mind that when wet flies were in there hay days here in the USA that they were sold in size 6 thru 14. Size 6 and size 8 were the most popular. So as to my fishing them in modern times I am doing no different from our past anglers. Now I do fish them at times one at a time or on a two or three wet fly rig. It's more for what I am in the mood for the day I am on stream. I most of the time in early spring or after heavy rains go with a medium fast action 9 ft 6 weight with intermediate sinking line. In the fast water and riffles the current takes the flies and does not allow them to make a subsurface appearance. I have missed a lot of Trout this way and seen the fish go after the fly as soon as it hits the water and turn there noses up because the current took the fly away along with a drag. So for these condtions I use an intermedaite sinking line and thus this solved all my issues. In lower water and slower moving stream I use a DT 6F line. Work just like a gem. Now my other Rod is an 8/12 foot 5 weight medium fast action rod and I use the same line Intermediate sink and floating line but for a 5 weight. Now I have caught fish on size 6 wet flies from a 3 1/2 ranbow to a 23 inch Brown Trout that I just landed this past June on the Willowemoc. In slow moving deeper water I am using a sinking line and counting to 50 and then giving the line a little twitch that does eventually entice a strike. The wet flies are fished like wet flies. I use the wet fly swing with a Liesering Lift at the end. As long as the fish don't stop and tell me not to use these flies this large I will continue to use them with much success. Yes I know about using larger flies at night, and I could'nt agrree more. But these flies size 6 & 8 do work in the morning and day, evening late evening and just pure dark. Hope this helped a little.
Nutman:
A wet fly will out fish a Dry fly any day of the week. I speak for the wing wets and if you want to hear about soft Hackles then read Sylvester Nemes. Wet flies are deadly and can produce when all other types of flies failed. A great amount of a Trouts diet is taken under the surface of the water and not the top. Halford from England finely admitted this himself. Just think that a Dry fly guru admitted this. In those days it was blasfamy. If you think this not to be true they banned skues from fishing on streams because of his subsurface nymph beliefs. Now let's tone it down a notch and talk about wet fly materials. Far as wings on the patterns in Trout you will find a good portion to be duck quills, Flank Feather some Guinea Hen, Turkey, Parrot, Scarlett Ibis, Pheasent hen. Don's videa are worthe it and if you are at the Somerset show in January you can by the DVD from Don and even have him autograph it for you. The DVD is worthe the money. Don and I have been together 10 years now as student and now good friends. My time besides tying these flies has been field trialing them as to when the patterns work, stream and weather conditions. I write for the Catskill fly tyers guild and my column is on a wet fly that I have fished over two to three years that catches fish, I give a brief story and give the time of year the fly works in and stream and weather conditions when applicable. If you want another wet fly that you want to frame, just write me and I will be glad to get one in the vise for you, I love tying a pattern here and a pattern there. It really puts me in a good mood doing this not to mention I forget about life for awhile.
Thanks for your answer. Did I read the part correctly about counting to 50, or did you mean counting to 5?
Davy Wotton did a Wet Fly Clinic for our shop this Spring, and it was really, really interesting to see how he fished wet flies in person- I picked up some stuff that I didn't see in his DVD. He loves to manipulate & animate his wets, often with very subtle movements from both his rod and line retrieve (usually a slow hand twist). I would venture to say that he "entices" many of his trout to take his fly, which is different than strictly imitating an insect and it's behavior. Sort of teasing them into taking it. He also talked & demonstrated how to dance your upper dropper fly on top of the water, and how deadly that is, esp. for brown trout- do you ever try dancing your upper dropper? It's a very cool technique, and very little used in the USA.
So what are your top 5 all-around most productive wets? You can include soft-hackles in this broad classification.
this is interesting ,that you are using a sinking line with these .I like the the little twitch Idea . I have been chasing steelhead for a while now . they use a technique here called skating or waking .Have you ever heard of these patterns being used for steelhead ? have you tied them larger .I dont think Ill be on the east coast for the show though that is whre I met Don ,I still have a bottle of black lauqur from him that I use often . That show is great it might be a good time to come home then .
What is your favorite pattern to tye ?
Ive been doing alot of spey and dee flys just because of what im fishing for ,Im hoping to sit in and watch hal gordon at a shop near me in a couple of months .
I started out fishing with wet flys ,then went to drys ,then to nymphs . Ive been fascinated by flys since I was young ,my father use to tye ,and wet flys always held a great fasination for me .So the intermitate line is getting sub surface are you throwing a mend or two in there or do you just cast straight out ? Ive seen a few of these patterns tied larger .