Why does Swinging wets works?

[redietz]

Thanks for the replies, I think I am getting a better understanding. Just to clarify my biggest confusion is the fact that flies casted across and down will be swung on a taunt line. This will move the fly across the creek from the bank and finish the swing straight down stream from you. While naturals do rise up from the bottom I don't think any of them swim across the creek in this manner.

You've pinpointed the reason that an upstream, dead-drift presentation of wets is often more productive than a downstream swing. Even fishing downstream, it's often more productive to use frequent mends to keep the fly going more or less straigt downstream.

That said, when the swing does work, it's got a couple of things going for. Some nymphs do swim across the stream. Stoneflies emerge on the banks, and they have to get there somehow. I find a hard swing to be the best method to take a lot of fish during a hatch of little brown stones, for example. Iso's are strong swimmers (and often emerge on the bank). A swing works there, too. And as mentioned above, sometimes the trigger is vertical motion, and this is easier to achieve casting downstream. Sometimes the fish a willing to ignore the sideways motion, (especially when there are emerging caddisflies) and sometimes you can minimize that by making fairly long casts more straight down than across and down (i.e. a 30 degree angle to current, rather than a 45.)

Swinging on a taught line also keeps the fly near the surface, and if you're fishing more than one fly, it's possible to keep the top dropper out of the water. There are times when this seems to be the only thing that works.

Wets can be fished 360 degrees around you; experiment to see which works best under any given circumstance.