Wet flies & sink tips

[Nymphmeister]

Wets are traditionally swung down & across on a floating line. Have any of you played around much with swinging them on a sink tip or sinking leader? I've met a person or two over the years- old timers mostly- who do this and swear by the method. One retired guy I met on the Naugy years ago fished like this, and he said he would often catch large numbers of fish using smaller wet mainly, like #14-16 (if tied on a wet fly hook like a Mustad 3906 or a Tiemco 3769, those are relatively small wets). Tom Rosenbauer has said that his friend Don Owens fishes wets all the time and often kicks everybody's ass with them- frequently employing them during hatches with "results that embarrass dry fly fishermen". Love it! I've only fished them on floating lines, although sometimes with split shot, and sometimes in a nymph rig (with soft hackles).

[Night Angler]

I tye a small soft (for those days I do fish when the sun is out..LOL)



A friend of mine showed these to me.. Ive caught fish on them ever since..

Its kinda like a brassie softie... but it has a 1.5 (for 16) and a 2.0mm tungsten bead for the 14's...

so basically it a wires body soft hackle with a tungsten bead... Very Effective!!


maybe that kinda what your talking about... just really getting the fly down to them..

Leonard

**** I'll post a picture tomorrow***

[Nymphmeister]

Yes, same idea Leonard. So can you fish in daylight without getting your retina burned or having your exposed skin catch on fire? Lol...

[Night Angler]

LOL...


Now that just funny.. no matter who you are!!

LOL

[Nymphmeister]

And do you find yourself salivating at the sight of a bare neck..... soft skin just inviting a little bite.... the taste of iron in your mouth.... Of course the only iron I like in a mouth is my hook in a trout's! Lol.

[Night Angler]

the difference between me and you...


I have one of those nice even "MOON TANS"..

Im willing to bet... you have a farmers tan, a line somewheres on you head wear your hat sits... and ofcourse I cant forget those "COON EYES"...

[Fascist Killer]

torrey- what sink rate? I would think and intermediate sink tip would be deadly with the wets.

[Davyfly]

Hi guys,

I am going to start a new thread here called Wet Fly Ways, here l will give you the benefit of some 50 years fishing what we term in the UK as the traditional way which encompasses wet flies, within that scenario we are dealing with hackled and winged wet fly patterns along with soft hackles.

Wet fly fishing has served me well in more than 40 countries around the world in any type of water be it large natural lakes, man made reservoirs, small creeks to the largest of rivers found in Norway.

It is a method of fly fishing that is very little understood here in the US, and in many respects the skills were never introduced to start with as back in the early days here in the US there were few places that trout could be found, Brooks excluded , they are not trout.

By and large it is the introduction of Rainbows from hatchery systems that has opened up for many systems that contain trout, with the exceptions of the isolated systems out west that contain the true trout, Cutthroat and the very few systems that contain A class Bows.
Brown trout were not as they are to day found in many waters.

In essence it is within the past 40 years that we have seen here in the States the interest to fly fish for the majority who now pursue it.
Many of the techniques well known in the UK and the EU are now starting to become popular here, but in many respects there is not the fundamental understanding of how to apply and fish those techniques, which was one of the reasons why l produced the Wet Fly Ways DVDm, which was the first of its kind both here and in the EU.

I was fortunate to have started my fly fishing when at that time there were still living many of the past masters, many of those old boys l was fortunate to know and learn some of the ways they fished.
To day l think they would shudder at the sight of indicators, all be it some of the wet fly methods do make use of a fly for that purpose.

Wet fly fishing is a skill that will take many hours to perfect, aside from the many other factors required such as fly selection, position of those flies and the appropriate technique to fish those flies under the given prevailing conditions.

Wet fly fishing is not simply related to downstream and stripping back those flies, far from it.

Davy

Davy Wotton.
www.davywotton.com.

[Nymphmeister]

Welcome to the forum Davy, glad to have you here. Wet flies are very underutilized here in the states as you know- mostly people swing soft hackles across or down & across, and that's about it. There does seem to be a small resurgence of interest in them here in the past 5-10 years though. I know I don't use them as much as I should, and I need to build up a solid collection of them. Aaron really just got onto them this year after going out with a guide in PA (Kurt Thomas of clarionriveradventures.com) that fishes them a lot, but does more of a dead drift type of presentation. As an aside, the Clarion River is an excellent and unusual brown trout fishery, producing some absolute whoppers from a stream that averages 40-80 across in most places- I think you would like it Davy, and it fishes well with wets!

What did you think of the book "Soft Hackled Nymphs" by Allen McGee that came out this year? I have it, but haven't really had a chance to thoroughly read it. Some nice looking patterns in it though, look like they would catch.

Looking forward to your informative posts Davy.

Torrey

[JUICE]

Great Mr. Wotton! I am a huge fan of yours and many of your products. Especially your dubbing. I have heard so much about your expertise in wet fly fishing and I know quite a few of our regulars will have questions for you. Thank you for your time. We certainly appreciate it!