The Ancient Art of the Wet Fly

[NeilRowe]

Friday k@kpraat:

Guys, the art of the downstream wet fly has been practised by our forefathers for a thousand years plus. It has caught countless trout during all those millenia.

The dry fly revolution really kicked in during the latter part of the 1800's and the upstream nymph techniques were developed and refined much later than that.

My question: How many of you still fish rivers and streams using the tradtional wet fly techniques? And equipment of course!

[Nepptune]

How did I know you were going to resurect this post Neil??? ;-)

I still fish the downstream approach........but only when its howling downstream and pushing a fly, any fly into the wind with my #00 is damn near impossible!!!
So I have done it, but only when forced to by the conditions...Add to that, that I don't think my technique is what it should be for this kinda fishing. Its pretty much a last resort..... Sean Mills should be the one to enlighten us on this from what I understand.

Andre

[gkieser]

I have a DVD of Oliver Edwards' that explains swinging wets (North country spiders) and I've tied a couple to try, but have not yet put them in the water.

I also have a couple of Invictas and Teal and Greens in my box which I tie on from time to time but as yet have not had any success. To be fair I've been fishing them in the Upstream Nymphing way.

I even tied on an Invicta for a while up on the Vaal last week but I don't think I gave it enough time. I believe some of the vaal guys are starting to experiment with swinging flymphs/soft hackles/spiders or whatever you wanna call them.

[NeilRowe]

Kevin Elliot from NZ will probably have a lot to contribute here. On the Tongariro wet flies are considered tradtional and proper and upstream nymphing is a new innovation.

GK, I've been tempted to try the North country spiders myself - maybe I'll tie some tonight.

I presume one has to fish them on sinking lines?

[NeilRowe]

Andre

You've been quiet lately - good to hear from you again

[NeilRowe]

Grant

I used the tradtional wet fly approach on the Orange for yellows and had fair success. Wet line, heavily weighted nymph cast across stream at a 45 deg angle upstream and allowed to swing.

Across and letting it swing also works well with Wooly Buggers in very fast water. But if you read the books there is a helluva lot more to the "art" than that.

I think the spider thing needs experimenting with

[gkieser]

From the DVD it looks like he fishes a floating line, casts across and lets it swing downstream, holding the line high off the water so he is in contact with the flies.

[NeilRowe]

Team of 3 flies?

[gkieser]

Yep. He was fishing a Waterhen Bloa, Partridge and Orange, and Snipe and purple.

[smallstreams.co.za]

Team of 3 flies?

Neil, you also have the Olly Edwards DVD on the North Country Spiders - I put it on Natashas' notebook - remember??