I wonder how many of the really 'old timers' who fished the traditional wets would turn over in their graves after reading that opinion of Dave Hughes? On second thought, maybe the millions of trout taken with those flies would chime in too! Here's my theory on the 'fall from grace of the traditional wet fly'. But before I describe my opiniion, just remember that the wet fly was one of the key elements that all but decimated trout fishing here in the east. So here I go: The style, materials and best methods of use are just too involved for the typical fly tier or fisher. Simplicity in tying and instant gratification when fishing are the norms of today. Guys simply don't want to acquire the materials or learn the techniques needed to tie the traditional wet fly patterns. They don't want to learn the methods to use them either. So the options are simpler flies tied with less troublesome materials led by the support of writers, guides, mass marketers of flies, etc and the elimination of winged wet flies in the catalogs and on fly fishing web sites. Lastly, writers can't sit on their laurels otherwise they become irrelevant. So they need new theories, backed by some nebulous sense of logic or maybe a singular observation that evolves into a concept. The interesting thing is that trout can't talk. But sooner or later any fly will work and that incident will be the impetus of 'proving' some authors theory.
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