Wet Fly's Revisited

[Andy B]

I found it very interesting that my favorite topic keeps popping up from time to time, Wet FLy Fishing. Wet fly's are a long tradition in fly fishing that has become a lost art/practice. When I think of older times and patterns lost I tell people to refer to the book Forgotten Fly's to see the father of wet fly patterns and his five hundred wet fly patterns. I then talk to a few eighty year olds in my club and they have a few wet fly patterns that are not even published that work well. Now when I think of modern day wet fly fishing and tying the name that comes right to mind is master tyer Don Bastian. Now Joe T., wet fly fishing work in the catskills from April through October. Yes wet fly's do imitate some caddis hatches but keep in mind that wet fly's also imitate mayfly's as well. To name a few fly's that imitate mayfly's would be the pink lady or the BWO or the Blue Dun or how about the pale evening dun wet or the blue quill or red quill, ok enough. Successful wet fly fishing requires three basic area's, Size, Color and Presentation. Yes this could be true of a lot of fly fishing but these three things is what truly makes wet fly fishing successful. The wet fly swing is the traditional way to fish, but another method is the two to three fly dropper method. This is practiced buy wet fly traditionalist. The reason for the two to three fly droppers was simple. One it covered a lot of water. Two, by tying on each dropper a different wet fly pattern a wet fly fishermen would quickly determine what the trout were going after by seeing which fly was being taken the most. Now since I practice wet fly and streamer fishing the most, I will tell you that wet fly patterns as you and I agree are truly effective. The black turkey pattern in size 18 has saved the day in producing fish when all else has failed. I at times have also caught more fish then my friends using a few simple wet fly patterns to thier dry's, nymphs and emergers. Please do not take me wrong. The nymphs and emergers and dry fly's are terrific and take fish emensely. I just want to point out that wet fly's can hold there own against a lot of other patterns. In closing I feel not every fisherman is ment to wet fly fish or dry fly fish or nymph and so on. What is really cool with our sport is we can still express ourselves when you think about it on the stream with the style of fly's we use and be successful. Please to any one on this board, this post was not intended to start an argument and was was respectfully written with the best of intensions. Tight lines.

Andy B