The above book is still for sale at Amazon UK. Price ?9.50 BP ($18.1289).
It has few illustrations, no photographs but is still one of the best sources for soft hackle and wet fly info
available today. Before Amazon started offering these books last year, the price on the second hand market
was $150.00 and upwards, depending on the condition.
Amazons books are in mint condition and as there was only one edition ever published (1988),
I can only assume someone mislaid a whole batch of them, and as they are in effect still new books,
they have to be sold at the original 1988 price, which was ?9.50.
Go for it, they could run out.
Guys, Guys, If I order another wet fly book, VEE is gonna kill me. Oh well, only the good die young. Ordered and eagerly awaited. Came to 18.47 Pounds, just how much did I spend?
Actually, when I got the Golden Plover, Woodcock wings, mole, jackdaw, etc, VEE seemed pretty excited. Then when the Peasall’s arrived she was all ready to start tying some wee wets. There may be two converts in the house.
Thanks for letting me know about how much the book cost. I figure Donald and Softhackler won’t steer me wrong.
The Art of Tying the Wet Fly and Fishing the Flymph. Jim Leisenring and Vern Hidy
The Art of the Wet Fly. WS Roger Fogg
all of GEM Skues books are excellent too, as are a host of others. I just rate these as my 3 favorites. JMO.
My copy of A Handbook of North Country Trout Flies arrived today. I think I’m going to like this one. Thank you, Donald, for the notice that it was available.
If you’ve read Leisenring/Hidy’s book, you have pretty much read Hughes’ book. Some newer patterns, but the techniques are pretty mcuh the same. He references Leisenring/Hidy a lot. I bought both books at the same time over the internet. Read Leisenring/Hidy first.
I just noticed we weren’t in the Fly Tying Forum, so thought I should add that Hughes does go into the fishing strategies of the wet fly far more than Leisenring/Hidy.
Gramps, I haven’t read enough of it yet to give a complete answer, but I suspect comparing Fogg’s and Hughes’ books will be like comparing apples and oranges. Both fruit, both juicy, but very, very different. Hughes says his favorite “wet fly” rod is a 7 1/2 footer. Fogg suggests an 11 1/4 foot rod, and says “You cannot fish a traditional wet-fly with a 9 foot rod…”*
When I get to the section on flies and their dressings, I suspect there will be major differences there as well.
*To be fair, the rest of the quote is “…and size 7 or 8 line.” The point, though, is that much longer rod than most anglers now use is necessary to fish wet flies in the traditional North Country manner.
I’m guessing the old timers wanted to keep the line out of the water. The newer method of the wet fly swing is to do more mending. They probably both work. My shoulder would never put up with an 11’ rod. Dave’s method might suit me better.
I want to be traditional, but still practical. I don’t remember my gramps using rods that long. Besides, I love my 8 footer.
I’ve only just gotten the book, but I think Fogg is talking about a different tradition - lightly dressed shoft hackle spiders fished upstream with long rods and short casts, and as you say, keeping as much line as possible off the water. I, too, have and 8 foot rod and do not see another in my future for some time, so when I finish the book I suspect I’ll reread Leisenring (luckily, our public library has a copy).
The way I understand it is you cast across or slightly down and across. Let it swing all the way down and at the bottom slightly raise the rod to make the fly rise like a natural. Old way hold the line off the water. New way to mend the line.
Even newer way is the make the fly swing at the bottom where a fish is holding. Takes a bit more planning, but more effective.
The only thing that doesn’t appeal to me is the 2-3 fly setups. Too nymphy for me. I’ll probably use one fly so I can make normal casts.
I have a thing about using more than one fly. I know it’s effective, but I don’t like it.
When you compare dry and wet fly fishing. I believe dry fly fishing to be harder. Wet fly fishing is too similar to streamer fishing.
My goal has always been to not use the easiest most effective method, but to use the most enjoyable method.
I think that what constitues a ‘wet fly’ can mean different things.
Here in the UK this can mean the larger rather more fancy flies used for loch style fishing,
or it can mean the smaller more like natural insects used on stream fishing.
When stream fishing, you can cast up stream and mend as the flies travel down, or across and down.
The up stream wet fly technique was advocated by Stewart in 1857, so it is not a modern method.
I think, that to a lot of anglers in North America, wet flies are the type of flies given by Bergman in his
book ‘Trout’, these are more similar to the flies used in loch style, or what we call lures.
Lures are usually size 6 to 12, a typical example is the Alexandra.
Stream wet flies are usually 12 to 18, and can be anything from a wet Greenwell’s Glory to any of the
traditional spiders (softhackles) and any mixture thereoff.
Casting a team of three is not difficult, although a slower rod is usually helpfull.
Most anglers here use a nine foot rod for most of their stream fishing, although a lot of wet fly fanatics
go in for longer (10ft +) rods. I have started using a 10.25ft wt 4 rod for wet fly this year.
Fogg did fish dry as well, but his book is about North Country Trout Fishing and the North Country is the stronghold of the wet fly tradition.
I didn’t notice you were from Scotland Donald. That’s good to hear as I know you’re into the traditional style of fishing. I really want to fish in the classic style, but I have to be practical. Your streams seem to be more open that what I have to fish on. A real long rod will not be the way to go here. I love the old winged wet flies. I’m just not sure how they work here. I think a lot of guys who say wet flies here are talking about soft hackle flies.
I’m not sure if wet fly fishing is matching any kind of hatch, or are they searching flies? Do you use soft hackle flies too? I’m not sure why i’m so excited about using wet flies, but I am. I just need to know more about it, and I need to know what i’m doing before taking the plunge.
I’ve never been able to figure out why specializing is so important to me in my life. I guess i’d rather be real good at one thing instead of half good at a lot of things. A fault of a good thing i’m not sure.
Fly fishing would have been clearer to me if I was born 75 years ago.
