Wet Flies and Bergman's "Trout"

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
1

I’m currently reading Ray Bergman’s book “Trout”, and I’m getting the impression that wet flies held an important place in the early-to-mid twentieth century fly-fisherman’s arsenal. There are nearly 400 wet fly patterns in the prints, only twenty or so nymphs, and maybe fifty streamers. But in books today, wet flies are only rarely discussed.

So what happened? Were they more popular in the past? Were they found over time to be less sucessful than other forms and then phased out? Are the newer styles and flies better at catching fish, or fishermen? Is anyone out there still a wet fly devotee?

I know this book is held in high regard, and as I’m reading it I can see why. It certainly has me thinking, but am I thinking correctly, …or am I all wet?

2

No they are making a big comeback. If you read Bergmans Just Fishing there is also alot on wet fly fishing. Many sites have areas for Classic Wet flies now, Don Bastian has been teaching class’s in tying them and there’s more than a few folks right here on FAOL who tie and fish them.

Fatman

3

I fish practically nothing but wet flies. They’ve been catching trout for the last 2000 years and still do.

When the “match the hatch” mentality kicked in (and I’m not knocking that)
fisherman wanted to know exactly what it was the fly matched. That’s a lot easier to do if you can say that fly is nymph, that fly is an emerger, that fly is a spinner, etc. Somehow the fact that you could match all three stages with same fly got lost in the rush to make flies as specific as possible.

About ten years ago or so, I noticed that there wasn’t a single wet fly listed in the Orvis catalog, and I wondered pretty much the same thing you are. Why were they replaced? I caught fish on them as a boy, and I still carried a few leadwing Coachman, but hadn’t really fished them myself in decades.
Thinking that it was a shame to let a tradition die out, I decided to fish only flies that were around before the second world war, and only wet flies and streamers from those. It was a real leap of faith to tie on a wet when trout were rising all about to an obvious hatch, but the results were a revelation. I caught at least twice as many trout as in any of the previous three years. I was catching fish when all those around were getting skunked.

I subsequently found out that there were a lot of other people who were starting to think like me. Dave Huges published his book Wet Flies – which I highly recommend. I discover that there’s a fairly large community of wet fly fishers out there. They tend to be more experienced fishers, if for no other reason than at least have to be able to tie a wet fly, since they’re not readily available at most shops. And you need just as much knowledge of insect to fish a wet effectively as you do a dry, and that knowledge seems to be easier to come by fishing dries where you can see what’s going on.

Bergman rocks! I’m currently re-reading Trout from cover to cover after twenty five years (other than gawking at the plates). I’m still learning from him.

Give wets a try. They do work.

4

Those old wets are what really got me tying. I love to tie them. They not only work, they are tiny little works of art. There is something about a well dressed traditional wet that makes it elegant in it’s simplicity.

This site has a feature, “Just Old Flies” that has some of the best tutorials and histories of these old flies you will find.

Another fantastic source of patterns and tutorials is http://www.traditionalflies.com/ which is maintained by board member eaustin. Eric also writes many of the “Just Old Flies” articles. His tutorials have helped me TONS and the techniques have transferred to many other types of flies.

Fish get the vast majority of their diet underwater. It make sense that wets were the primary fly fished for so many years.

5

i dont think they ever left, just fewer folks using them. a resurrection of sorts has been going on for quite awhile.

6

I learned to fish and tie wets and streamers 43 years ago,at age 11.
They still are 98 percent of my fishing, and still catching as well also.
Still fish a cast of three wets for most fishing.

Wet

7

I think wet flies were used more in the past because the quality of the tying material wasn’t nearly as good as it is now. How do you tie a nice dry fly if all you can get your hands on are grade B necks with very few smaller feathers?

8

Here’s a plug for Don Bastian’s Classic Wet Flies reviewed here. Among other things it has a wonderful tutorial on marrying wings for classic wet flies. A good bang for your buck IMHO.
mcsteff

9

Hi,

My name is Jeff. I’m a wet fly fisher for many years now. I fished a wet fly on my last fishing trip and, to be entirely honest, I’m pretty sure I’ll fish a wet fly the next time I go out too.

There are a lot of “fashions” in fly fishing. Wet flies, for whatever reason, went out of fashion a while back. Not sure why as they can be very effective. I think one reason was that they can be very effective searching patterns, you swing them through likely holding water, and fish a lot of water that looks like it should hold fish, but in the end, you aren’t fishign to a fish. You’ve not seen the fish. So, people who enjoyed dry fly fishing, or casting a nymph to a sighted fish, would describe this as “fishing blind” or “chuck and chance it”. It’s not “real fly fishing” because it’s not the method they like, and for some reason people often feel that it’s important that you like their method as much as they do. Moreover, it seems that liking what they have to say seems to require disliking something else (in this case, the systemtic fishing of water you learned through experience and observation was good fish territory - a bit more skillful sounding than “fishing blind”, which you are not since you’ve been observing the water, and “chuck and chance it”, which all fishing is, since fish refuse nymphs and dries as well; and actually, fishing wet flies to sited fish is a lot of fun, and a huge challenge too).

Anyway, wet fly fishing, which can be down stream swings, or up stream casts with dead drifts, etc, can be very rewarding and at times will out fish other methods. Some of the presentations, like the down and across, are easy to learn so make for a good starting point. I suppose this can make some view it as a “begginers” method only, which is not really true.

I recomend people learn to fish wet flies as well as dries as well as nymphs. I personally don’t fish dries and nymphs as often as I should, and there are times that results in me not catching a fish. But then, I’ve had days where the shoe was on the other foot.

Wet flies, which come in the wingless and winged category, both of which can also be divided into collar hackles and palmers, are still very effective at fooling trout.

  • Jeff
10

Thanks everyone for the responses! I think I’m going to learn how to tie some of these and put them to the empirical test. Good little project for the winter months. Anyone have any suggestions of some simple patterns? Ones with fairly common materials?

I really like the idea of keeping a tradition alive.

11

For winged wets, try a Dark Hendrickson to start out. You can use dyed mallard instead of woodduck if you want; it’s a lot cheaper and works just as well.

Then when you’re ready to do a quill wing, try a Leadwing Coachman. Or a regular Coachman. (If you already tie a Prince nymph, this one will seem somehow familiar.)

For wingless, you can’t beat a partridge and orange as a first tie. Or a partridge and green. Or a partridge and yellow …

12

I think the soft hackles like the partridge and whatevers are probably the simplest ties. I dove right in on the quill wings. There is a good tutorial in the “Just Old Flies” archives. I actually have more problem with wets like the Hendricksons or Picket Pin than with the quill wings for some reason.

I have used both duck quill and goose shoulder. I prefer the goose shoulder. It is a bit easier to work with and marries well. You can also get virtually any color you want easily in goose shoulders. Another plus is that you can take your wing slips from opposite sides of the same feather, no need for matched pairs of feathers.

My favorites for fishing are the Coachman, Leadwing Coachman, and Royal Coachman. I tie the last in a dry, too. It’s a killer.

13

A list, hmm, here’s a few I would suggest.

Wingless wets (spiders and such) :
Partridge and Orange

Pritt’s Water cricket (You can find this in the FOTW archives; if you don’t have a starling skin, get one! The quill feathers are good for wings, and the rest are great soft hackles)

Partridge and Hare’s ear with peacock herl head (i.e. dubbed body of hare’s ear, copper wire rib, partridge hackle, and a few turns of peacock herl in front of the hackle).

Bailie’s black spider (body brown thread waxed to black, or just black thread; hackle starling feather, palmered to mid way down the body)

Bailie’s red spider (body yellow, hackle natural red/brown hen feather, palmered half way down body).

Wingless palmers (bumbles):

Bibio (dubbed body in three parts, black/red/black, with black hackle palmered over the length, silver oval tinsel or wire as a rib)

Soldier palmer (tail tuft of red wool, body red wool, hackel, natural red (i.e. red brown)

wooly worm (tail red tuft, body yellow wool, hackle grizzle palmered length of body)

Winged Collared :
Royal Coachman (catches just too many fish, and is just way too classic not to have tail: pheasant tippets, body 3parts, peacock herl, red floss, peacock herl, wing white quill slips, hackle brown)

Greenwell’s Glory (another that catches way more fish than is good for it: body primrose silk waxed to olive, rib fine gold wire, wing starling quill or mallard quill, hackle furnace)

Black gnat : tail black hackle fibres, body black wool, wing black or white quill, hackle black (I mean really, aren’t all insects just small black things?)

Bloody Butcher : tail black fibres, body silver mylar, rib silver wire, throat red fibres, wing blue section of a mallard quill (this is such a great pattern it was banned on some UK rivers when it was first invented!)

Parmachene Belle: tail red & white fibres mixed, body yellow floss or dubbing, rib flat silver tinsel, wing married strips of quill, white/red/white, collar or throat hackle, red & white fibers mixed (this is a killer for brook trout, and rainbows like it too. I’ve taken a few small browns in Nova Scotia this year as well, but haven’t taken any browns in New Zealand with it yet though)

Winged Palmer:
Invicta : tail golden pheasnat crest (or yellow hackle fibres), body yellow dubbing, hackle brown hackle palmered lengthwise, rib silver oval tinsel or wire, wing mottled turkey (this is a really good one to swing through a rise if there are caddis about)

White Invicate (tail: grizzle hackle fibres, body white wool, silver rib, wing white quill, body hackle grizzle palmered lengthwise; good if there are white moths around)

These are good in sizes 10 down to as small as you can tie them. Most spiders (wingless collared flies) are probably best on size 14, some 16s and 12s are good to have though.

  • Jeff
14

The reason I think that wet flies kind of got phased out a little is because dry flies and nymphs started to become so popular here in the US in the early 50’s. It became a new way of taking trout and lots of new patterns were being developed and proven worthy of taking fish. And the wetflies just took the back seat to those flies. Over the last 20 years I have fished solely with nothing but wet flies. Putting all my nymphs and dry flies in storage. I fish my wet flies the same way the old timers used to fish them 3 flies at one time. Over the years I developed my own leaders for different stream sizes and stream conditions. And my flies are a cross between a traditional wetfly and a soft hackle wetfly. The flies are constructed of very soft material so there is lots of movement when there fished. I also have over a 100 different pattern that I developed and they have produced very well on the stream I fish here in Pa. I agree with all the other posts the flies have been used all along but there’s just not alot being talked about them. Tie afew and give them a try you wont be dissappointed.

Dave

15

Simple and effective flies:

-soft hackles
-sow bugs
-wooley buggers
-egg paterns
-zebra midges
-bead head nymphs

Don’t much more than that to consistently catch fish…

16

He asked about traditional wet flies. Only soft hackles out of you list would fit that description.

17

SHHHHHHH…you’ll let the secret out! I seldom use anything else unless I’m panfishing.

18

Wet flies are a pretty varied lot. The colorful quill wing attractor patterns in Trout fell out of favor many years ago. People have begun tying them again, I think, as much for their beauty as fish catching ability. The more representative quills such as the lead wing coachman or winged hares ear, or the soft wing wets such as the pickerpin or professor, are not as popular but did not disappear. They are easier ties and are certainly fish catchers. Soft hackles have been in favor for at least the past twenty years.
The UK patterns, some of which Jeff touched on, were never in favor in the US. They should be. Two of my favorites what he calls Bailie’s black spider (some call it Stewart’s spider) and the Invicta. I particularly like the silver body version with a hen pheasant wing.

I will put in a good word for Wotton’s DVD Wet Fly Ways. He touches on flies but it is principally about the UK approach to fishing them.