The Enigma of The Wet Fly, A Scots take on the subject
Thought I would like to share this wee story I wrote with you. My apologies if you have seen it before but maybe some others would like to read it . Its really about my way of fishing & what it means to me. Enjoy my ramblings
The Enigma of The Wet Fly
The trout within yon wimpling burn,
Glides swift......a silver dart,
And safe beneath the shady thorn,
Defies the anglers art......
Robert Burns
Wet Fly is a state of mind, simplicity personified. It is a feeling, a time & a place.
Wet fly means tumbling streams open sky & the wind in your face.
It is sounds & smells, bright colours & bog myrtle. Life is all around us, grazing cattle or the gentle bleat of sheep. A Golden Eagle soars overhead & a Dipper dives for Creepers. Curlews rest in the field & from the Scots pine come the cheep cheep of the Chaffinch.
Wet fly men are alone with their thought. No guide or clanking oars just peace with his inner self sounds or the smell of the river.
Inspiration is what makes a good wet fly man, by comparison the dry fly is Police work, investigate the evidence and produce an imitation. Wet fly is all about underwater, there is little evidence, indeed intuition & experience rule the roost. It is one of constructive imagination not an exact science. A wet fly man reads the stream. They follow the eddies & bumps, a world of it's own. The flies are on an errand, personal emissary not tools. That difference elevates the wet fly man to a higher status, not ammunition but that of partner.
We are but mere apprentices guided by what has gone before. The old time fly fisher knew that, he put his name to his creations, Dry flies tend to be called after the insect not so the wet fly. These proud men put their names to the fly. Interpretating them is another story & fierce locale variations are well guarded secrets. Misinterpretation can invoke fierce loyalties. Who can forget the Durham Canon & his Greenwell?s Glory, WC Stewart?s Black Spider, Broughton the Penrith shoemaker or Peter Ross of Killin Perthshire? Who was he? I have often wondered I have visions of a heavenly podium of wet fly men aloft from the rest of fly fishers in the big stream in the sky.
Sometimes I can feel the hair on the back of my neck stand on end as I ponder a tricky stretch of water or a choice of fly.
What would they have done? How would they have approached it? Sometimes I swear the answer comes ?from above?. Oh I would have loved to spend a day in their hallowed company. One never knows maybe they would have liked a day with me.
I flick my team of 3 flies down & across a Partridge & Orange on the tail, second dropper the ubiquitous Greenwell & a jaunty wee Red Tag on the bob.
As they float down the stream I sense presence of Trutta unseen but waiting. The flies follow the nooks & crannies, the humps & eddies interplaying with the current. A wee Broonie darts out, a silver flash & intercepts my wee Greenwell. A pull & the rod bends & the Trout protests its hooked state by turning below me, jumping & throwing the hook.
Damm blast, rod too low........sugar
The hairs on the neck stand on end??.Tut Tut Highlander, easy does it I seem to hear from behind me, but other than the protesting sheep no man is there.
A few casts later a nice Brown Trout of around a pound rests on it?s bed of fern.
Its butter coloured belly & blacks spot resplendent in the early Spring sun
Rod held high, it was well hooked on the Spider. I sense a certain satisfaction.
That’s better the voice says.……was it in my head?
Or did it come from the Podium.
I will find out some day.
Tight Lines
My thanks to Stephen Williams for the poetic license & to The Bard who furnished the wee poem.
