I was under that impression for a long time, but the more I pore over quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore, the less convinced I am. Ronalds included a number of caddis flies in a Fly Fisher’s Entomology in 1836; the grannom, aka “greentail”, was being imitated at least as far back as 1681 (Chetham highly recommended it), the “shell fly” of the Treatyse in the 1490’s was almost certainly a caddis, and even Halford included a whole plate of caddis imitations. I suspect it was the latter gentleman who downplayed caddis flies; they didn’t fit too well into his upstream, dead drift theory.
Interesting discussion. To add another dimension, is it possible that the wings were intended to be functional rather than aesthetic? i.e. to keep the fly from rolling when retrieved or fished in moving water?
They could be functional somehow, but I don’t think it’s to keep the fly from rolling. A wingless wet is “in the round” and it really doesn’t matter much if it were to roll. I also think that 1x gut leaders back in the day did a pretty good of that as well.
OTOH, they could be to push water – winged wets are especially useful after dark. Even during the day, when fishing quill winged wets switching from a fly wings concave side out to one with wings convex side out, or vice versa, can sometimes make a considerable difference in catch rate.
I have read many really old books in which famous fly fishing authors have said that the Caddis was not important to the fly fisher. Gary LaFontaine goes into quite a detail about how the Caddis was not considered to be of great importance for centuries.
Now, that doesn’t mean they were completely ignored, but they sure didn’t get the attention they have gotten in the last 50 years. How many books were written about the caddis before 1950 or so?
Just one example: Preston Jennings wrote in “A Book of Trout Flies” “The Caddis flies are not nearly as important to the flyfisher as the Mayflies for the reason that the Caddis flies, in a great majority of instances, emerge from the stream during the night.”
Lest one think less of Ed Zern:
He did regularly publish a column “Exit Laughing” in Field and Stream magazine. He was also the Fishing Editor in 1976.
I have a book edited by J. Michael Migel and Leonard M. Wright, Jr.
The book is “The Masters on the Nymph”. Chapters are written by many famous fly fishers: Dave Whitlock, Charlie Brooks, Carl Richards, A.J. McClane, Al Troth, Frank Sawyer, etc., etc. and one chapter by Ed Zern and it was not humorous.
The Coachman was a “fancy” wet fly when originally tied, what does the leadwing imitate? All the others you list are Catskill wet flies. Is this another limitation on the original question? None are patterns used here, and imitate insects we don’t have. The more I understand the restrictions on the original question, the more I agree with its proposition. Are we talking about winged wet flies in general, or just a very limited selection from one area, that represents an exception to the general use of winged wet flies?
The March Brown has also been mentioned. It may be named after an up wing fly, but it could be argued that the winged wet version isn’t fished as an imitation of that fly most of the time. It is a very successful fly here on the lochs. There are no March Browns in the lochs. Its close cousin, the Harry Tom (Same tying, but with a bronze mallard wing) is another effective fly where there are no March Browns. The Silver March Brown is considered a fancy or attractor wet fly. The traditional march brown imitations used on rivers here are wingless. I’m with Tig, I use it more as a caddis imitation than as a March Brown imitation.
In the days of Charles Cotton fly fishing had not be codified into wet and dry fly fishing. If a fly floated it was fished that way. When it sank it was fished that way. In either state the fly would be close enough to the surface that a rise form would be seen when taken. Not really wet fly fishing as practised today.
Cheers,
A.
I have not tied a duck-quilled “winged wet” in many years. I do tie a few with feather-fibered wings (mallard flank, hackle feather fibers, etc.) targeting specific mayfly hatches and do well with them at times. Would Bill Shuck’s “Just-Emerged PMD” be considered a “winged wet”?
Joe
The leadwing coachman was tied to imitate the emerging isonychia. It has a peacock herl body, hence the coachman designation I guess.
To be fair Alan, I think the limitation was placed by you, “Generally winged wets are not tied to represent up wing flies.” This may have been true in the UK (with the exception of the Greenwells Glory), but not true in the U.S. While I’m not up on my Ronald’s or Cotton, I think it’s accurate to say that caddis were virtually ignored in the U.S. until mid-20th century (and maybe even a little later - Leiser and Solomon were published in the late 70s, I think). My assumption had been that caddis just weren’t as important in the Catskills - the cradle of American fly fishing.
I had read that winged wets in the U.S. were tied to imitate what our early anglers (Thaddeus Norris lacked scuba gear) figured how mayflies looked underwater as they emerged. I see a fully winged fly on top of the water, I’m naturally going to assume it’s fully winged under the water. As pointed out, this is true for some may flies but not others.
My assumption has been that winged wets are taken by trout as caddis, although I even wonder about this. Do caddis go shooting across current like a wet fly on the swing?
The slate drake (Isonychia bicolor), aka iso, aka leadwing.
Agreed about Cotton, but then again, I seldom fish winged wets more than an inch or so deep, and often floating or skimming the surface.
The March Brown wet has been fished as a caddis imitation for some time. Williams in 1948 said it was a good imitation of various sedges, and especially brown silverhorns. he quote Skues as saying that it’s "an excellent fly … quite a poor imitation of the natural fly, and quite a passable one of almost anything else.
Preston Jenning was well after Halford. There’s no doubt that caddis were ignored for much of the 20th century; less so before about 1880. I don’t have time to type in quotes from Ronalds (as an example) but he was quite enthusiastic about certain caddis flies.
Thanks Bob. (“there’s no doubt that Caddis were largely ignored for most of the 20th century…”). That was my original point
Most fishers believe that because they know something ( like that Caddis are one of the most prevalent insects for trout fly imitation) that it was always known and realized. Not so much.
By the way, Preston Jennings knew what Caddis were. He had drawings and patterns as well, I believe. But, he believed more in the larval stage and downplayed the importance of the adult. Yet, today, I would guess that some form of a Caddis dry fly pattern might well be the most utilized fly on the water.
Well now I get a laugh out of it as well. You swing the wet flies across the current. I can only quote TE Pritt on that.
“'Tis the devil’s work my son, and do not let me catch you about it.”
There are no insects that travel across the current like that, It matters not what you tie a wet fly, or any other fly, to imitate, if you present it to the fish in an unnatural way, you are not imitating anything. Imitative fly fishing has to include imitative presentation as well as pattern. Take either away and you loose the whole.
Again the restriction is being added after the question. Byron’s post didn’t limit the the flies at all. We have a very long tradition of wet fly fishing with thousands of patterns, taking all of them into account winged wets tied to represent up winged flies are a tiny fraction of them. Looking at the totality of winged wet flies my statement does not put any limit on Byron’s original point. It seems that you are holding me accountable for his intended, but omitted statement. I didn’t frame my answer from the blinkered view of only looking at US flies from the last 100 or so years. As I have already said if you do place that restriction on the flies being discussed he may be correct. The fact remains though that he didn’t. Therefore, neither did I.
Cheers,
A.
More often upsteam or up and across, with a very short line; I grease my top dropper and leader. Of course if the fish want it the other way, I’m willing to oblige.
Bob,
What waters do you fish most frequently?
The stream that I fish the most (like at least once a week, 12 months a year) is the Gunpowder Falls in Maryland. It’s a medium-sized tailwater with 4000 wild brown trout per mile. Lots of long pools and glides 3-4 feet deep, what Dave Huges describes as perfect wet-fly water. (Plenty of riffles, too.) A good variety of hatches. I’m also on the PA limestoners about once a month (yes fish in the Letort will take a wet fly.)
Yrs, a wet fly, but, a winged wet? LOL
You’d be surprised at how well a Pale Evening Dun/Little Marryat works during a sulfur hatch/spinner fall. Put floatant on it, add a soft hackle 18 inches below, cast upstream. It lies flat on the water, like a dead spinner and makes a great striking indicator. If it gets down stream unmolested, give it small tug to sink it, feed it some slack, and let it continue down. It’s by far my most productive tactic on spring creeks when the sulfurs are on.
It works in the west when the PMDs are on the water, too. My biggest fish ever from Henry’s Fork took a winged wet, and I once had a 30 fish evening on the Gallatin using the technique described above. (My biggest ever from that stream took a leadwing coachman, cast straight upstream, but that was over caddis flies.)
This generally only works in the match-the-hatch conditions, though. It’s not a good technique to fish the water blind.
It boils down to the fact that in reality, trout are not “smart”… why at times will they absolutely smash a fast-stripped size 8 woolly bugger in the middle of a BWO hatch, why even so-called picky trout will hit a mepps spinner in a clear stream… winged wets apparently represent something the trout interpret as edible so they hit them. There is no “misunderstanding” that the style works, and has worked more or less forever.
Good stuff, Bob.
I will be fishing the HF next week. Will be using wingless wets in ways similar to those you describe.
Have done well there when a Drakes come off with a wet Green Drake.
A nice Henry’s Fork Rainbow on a Green Drake Wet. If you look at the lower corner of the mouth, you will see it.
Looking through Leonard’s “Flies” of 1950 and found this quote while he was discussing the female Caddis’ diving to deposit her eggs:
“It has been presumed by several authorities that the wet fly was first dressed to simulate the female caddis in her underwater venture. Perhaps this is so. However, it seems more likely to me that the anglers of centuries ago observed the myriad aerial flies and copied them as best they could with the materials available, but fished them wet after the habit of using bait for so many years.”
I found his musing interesting.
I have fished classic winged wets for over 20 years. I fish them depending on the stream condition, on high to medium stream conditions with flow I use an intermediate sinking line and on lower stream conditions I use a DT floating line. I also fish these classic wet flies with with much success in size 6 and now mostly size 8. I do at times need to go down in size to a size 12. Now I have tyed 90% of the patterns listed in Ray Bergmans Book Trout. I have also tyed numerous English, Irish and scottish winged wets as well. I have over a hundred patterns now that I have fished with and learned about when they work under stream conditions and time of year. Yes I do fish with a lot of the classic winged wet flies mentioned, but I also hves fished classic winged wet like:
- Professor
- Blue Professor
- Blue Bottle
- Telephone Box
- Thunder
- Black Gnat two different patterns
- Romaine (deadly pattern in the Catskills, NJ and PA)
- Black Turkey
- Montreal
10 Invicta, & Silver Invicta - King and Queen of The Waters
- White Millers (Good Nightime pattern when Moths Present)
- Cupsuptic
- Last Chance
- Ferguson
I could go on and on and not to mention a few of my very own winged wet creations. Winged wets have their place and are extremely effective. You just have to know when to use them and how to fish them. I also use soft hackle wet flies and also have fished like many have with an Orange Fish Hawk or a Bracken Clock. A true wet fly angler uses all types of wet flies, soft Hackles, Flymphs and classic winged wets.