Learned some new stuff today!

[AaronJasper]

I went fishing today and left all the weighted nymphs at home as to not go to my "crutch". I started off with a brace of three wets. Fishing was OK at best. I met up with ezflyfish from the forum. I maybe landed a half dozen with the floating line. I saw some fish coming up from the bottom. It was then I made the switch. I put on the "slime line" and started some whoop ass on the fish. It was serious as I would say. I would venture to say that Davy or the other wet fly guys fish with an intermediate or even heavier sinking lines. I could not begin to describe the advantage that the intermediate line gave me today. The difference was like night and day.

The best techniques was a slight down and across with an upstream mend. I wuld let the flies dead drift for some time then begin and active retrieve using a figure 8 hand twist to "animate" the flies.

The Alexandra was the point fly
Some caddis with a green butt was the middle dropper ;D
The top dropper was a black fly with an orange dubbed butt section

I don't even know the name of most of the wet flies that I have. I can tell you one thing... they work!

[FLYDAD]

Thanks for that good wet fly info. Aaron. I have been playing around with the wet flies quite a bit since the clinic. I will give that technique a try next time out. I realy like fishing the wets its a nice break from the nymth fishing. I still havent tried czech I need to try and get better at what ive been doing.

[FLYDAD]

Aaron did the flies you were using have soft hackle? I think the soft hackle makes a big dif. Like if yiou were to take a caddis pupa and put a soft hackle collar on it.

[AaronJasper]

Dave,

The middle and top dropper were soft hackles. The middle fly was a caddis imitation. The top dropper was black as it says to do in the DVD.

[tashmoo 2]

Aaron,

What is an intermediate line?

Are you using the long rod, 10 ft +, on smaller streams too? I think a longer rod is fine for wet fly fishing larger rivers like Housatonic but would be a nuisance for medium size rivers like the Saugatuck or Norwalk. If you had one rod to use and fished 90% on medium sized rivers would u buy a 9ft rod like SLT 9ft 5 wt or a 10 ft rod like TFO or Z axis for fishing wets.

thank u

[AaronJasper]

For all of my sub-surface presentations I like to use the longer rod. I know that there are some opponents to this. I like the TFO 10' 5 weight for the wets. The rod has the perfect action for imparting action to your flies.

I recently added another Z Axis to the arsenal. I have the 10' 4 wt. I took it on for a test drive today and this is going to be the new nymph rod. It was the perfect action for fishing with weighted nymphs.

The only time I use a rod less than 10 feet is for streamers and those are all 9.5 feet and dries, those are 9 foot.

[Davyfly]

There are many reasons why l would opt for a intermediate line over a dry line, some of which will be related to fishing in a adverse wind as a intermediate will allow for a way better hang and control of fishing those flies.
I may also use it if the fish were at that time not inclined to move to the surface and take flies worked at that level or at least the flies would come around to your bank side position, what is often termed as swinging technique.
Given what you said Aaron you would have been more or less stripping the flies, if you made a more across to downstream initial presentation, as when using a sunk line the downstream influence would make it very difficult to work with a dead drift for any extended period of time.

If l use a intermediate line and want longer periods of dead drift then my presentation would be more upstream with a rod high position to track those flies.
If l did not have a adverse wind l would more likely use a dry line with a large fly at point for the anchor, you will be surprised hoe deep you would be able to have those flies fish by this means. either fast, med or slow flowing water.


Regarding the other posts here. Long rods.

I will choose a long rod any day over a short rod, for many reasons. There is no way you can do same with a 9ft rod over a 10ft rod. In fact long rods fished on smaller streams offer many advantages. I accept that when fishing a water that is well crowded with trees it would be a problem, as a rule when fishing such systems short up stream presentations are the way to go, and in this case a short rod would be OK as here we more or less dealing with a dead drift presentation, regardless if it be with dry, wet or soft hackles.
Streamer fishing is a very different matter so far as rivers, here 9ft is overall good enough, fishing still waters differs big time, here again long rods offer many advantages over shorter rods, be it for dry or fast sink lines, at least so far as international traditional lough style.
It is very difficult to work flies from depth to surface using a short rod, top water fishing during a hatch or when fishing midges would differ here all be it the long rod still offers advantages here also.

Intermediate lines.
More or less it amount to a fly line that sinks at a slow rate, anything from 1 to 4 ips. There are many options out there line wise to cover this. Clear slime lines to those of color.
I might add also that these lines can be used for general nymph fishing techniques and can at times beat the use of a dry line, or as a line to fish combinations of nymphs and wet/soft hackle flies.


Davy.

[alanb_ct]

Just to clarify: a slime line is just a clear (no color) intermediate or sinking line, right?

[LorenWilliams]

A slime line is a slow intermediate with sink rates in the 1-2 ips range. Clear intermediates , I believe, came about after the term Slime was being used. Davy?

[Davyfly]

Took at it like this. Silk lines were more or less the first intermediate type line. If you did not grease them they would sink.
The first modern lines l used of that nature were the wet cel 1 and 2. So far as l am aware SA first produced the mono line, which is more or less what the clear intermediate line is. It was at one time called the Mastery Stillwater. And was also termed the slime line due to the way when wet it felt in your fingers.

It is a line than needs to be wet to perform well, when we see hot dry days often as not it will not cast as well as other lines. During such times l will frequently dump my reel and rod in the water to keep the line wet, that keeps the line slick, slimy if you like.

Davy.