Dry fly, wet fly?

[MuddlerMinnow]

Hi all,

As a complete newbie to fly fishing, I?m running into lots of questions. I sure I could post one a day for a month and still have more! Along the way, I?ll probably test the old adage that ?there is no such thing as a stupid question.? I?m trying to keep them as specific as possible, but I greatly appreciate some advice from all of you folks!

First, I?m having a challenge figuring out how to fish some of my new flies. Specifically, how do I know when to use flotant, when to let it float naturally, and when to encourage it to sink? Right now the basic ones that confuse me the most are:
1) spinners with big fluffy hackles?are they meant to be skimmed across the water? Should I use flotant?
2) Spinners without hackles (e.g. rusty spinners)?do I use flotant? Do I fish them wet or dry?
3) Terrestrials?my hoppers have big fluffy bits, do they get flotant? How the cricket I have that?s a big ball of coarse hair tied together with legs? Should they float or sink? Ants seem like they must be sinkers, since they don?t have anywhere logical to put flotant.
4)One that has me baffled is the caddis fly. It?s got a delta wing, so it looks like a wet fly. It?s also got a bunched, short-cropped elk hair head to it that makes it look like a muddler. This makes it the fly look (to me anyway) like a wet fly. Should it be fished dry? Again, should I use flotant?

Most importantly, are there any general rules of thumb I should be following in figuring this out? To date, most of my success has been on either streamers or dry blue winged olives.

Thanks in advance!

[GBurgFisher]

Muddler
This isn't going to really help but, nor is it going to be what you want to hear but...it depends. I'll go ahead and post what I think are the answers to some of your questions, but it just depends (sometimes) on the situation. I don't use spinners much so I'm going to ignore 1 and 2 except to say that I have always thought of spinners with big fluffy hackles as skaters.

3) I find my terrestrial fishing to be most successful on top. This is another depends though. It depends on the day, what type of terrestrial, etc. I would fish the hoppers on top. I would also fish the ant on top, but it depends on what type of ant (they make some floating and sinking). The ants I use have hackles (and I use floatant). Some are made from foam with rubber legs (pry wouldn?t use floatant), and some are made to sink.
Next time your on the river, pick an ant up off a tree and drop it in the water. Watch it, it floats (squirms really..). Now if that same ant were to go through some rough water it might sink and become suspended in the flow of the stream. Same thing with the hopper (although Its my personal opinion that hoppers are so big juicy and delectable that they dont make it very far before getting gobbled so I always fish them on top).

4) There are a lot of different caddis flies out there. Emergers, poopahs, etc. Some are meant to be fished in the surface film, some like a nymph, and some dry. Sounds like you may be talking about an elk hair caddis. These typically represent stone flies, which unlike mayflies and other stream insects have their wings folded back against their abdomen (as opposed to vertically like a mayfly). I like to skate these guys across riffles and usually keep them on top. I do not find flotant to be as important on caddises. I dont think they rely on the hackle as much as the elk hair, which is pretty buoyant stuff itself.

Hope this helps, and no there are no stupid questions.

[Ray]

Muddler, stop by the chat room on Tuesday evening between 7:00 & 9:00. We have a beginner chat where no question is not a good question and all are answered, often by many guys with with a lot of experiance. The forum is very open and all are welcome, we will do our best to help you however we can. As for your question here, those are all dry flies, use floatant on all of them and fish them in/on the surface film.

Muddler;
The way I was taught to fish weighted nymph's was to cast up stream and across the run. Mend the line (throw some slack up stream) to let the Nymph sink and then follow your line through the run and watch it for hookup's. Easier done than said but very effective. You have to "Think" where the fly is actually at as the hook up may be several feet back from the end of your fly line.

[MuddlerMinnow]

Thanks guys, that's very helpful. Are there some general rules on when and wear to apply flotant to flies that you're not sure how to fish?

MM;
On 3 recent guided float trips the guide would apply flotant to the dry fly when it was tied on. I usually apply it when the fly no longer sits high in the water.
Tip: If you are going to make a few false casts to dry the fly don't do it over the spot you're casting too.