Great thread. Beautiful flies. Davy Wotton's "Wet Fly Ways" DVD opened my eyes to fishing wets upstream, down and across. His "Wet Fly Tying DVD" taught me how to fill my box with good looking and effective winged wets and soft hackles. Dave Whitlock wrote a pithy article describing how he implemented Davy's methods, an article which is still available on Dave Whitlock's website.

I now fish wets almost all the time. This past weekend Penn's Creek provided great fish when I fished a two fly cast of Wotton's Black and Silver spider #16 and a #12 soft hackle of my own design, silver holographic tinsel body, small UTC red wire rib, wine thread thorax and a starling hackle. I used Hanak hooks from performanceflies.com for the black and silver spiders, and they worked great. I lost my footing on some bottom boulders playing a fourteen inch brown, and that barbless hook still got the job done. I'm planning to tie more wets on Hanak hooks, in addition to my usual Kamasan hooks (B175, B170, B160).

No indicator, no need to wait for action on the top, and great results in all kinds of situations, wet flies are fascinating, beautiful and beguiling. I like the fact that their ways are subtle. It will take a long time to figure out what works, in what conditions of light, water clarity, water speed, etc. I can show a new fly to Davy Wotton and he'll predict in what conditions the fly will work! I am scouring old books like A. Courtney Williams'. "A Dictionary of Trout Flies" to try and assimilate that kind of knowledge.

I too love swinging soft hackles and emergers. Most of my trout fishing is on the Lower Mountain Fork River in Oklahoma. It is a stocked tailwater that is developing a nice population of native rainbows and some browns. Most people fish nymphs and a lot of nice trout are taken.

I find nymphing too boring. Laying out a nice down stream cast, waiting for the fly to rise and the solid strike are so satisfying. Better yet, it produces on days when other methods don't. This summer we went to Smoky Mountain NP. I had about 2 hours to fish so I just found a spot and started drifting a soft hackle. I found a seam that was holding fish and started getting looks and a couple hits. Doing some research, I had read the BWOs were common in the park. An olive RS2 did the trick. Same seam and same cast.

Padre, that sounds fun. What size olive RS2 did you use? A #16?

Crystal clear mountain water, an ultralight rod and wet fly techniques sounds like a recipe for bliss.

Simonuca, you'll love those DVDs. The Wet Fly Ways is an extremely popular fly fishing DVD, deservedly so. And the Wet Fly Tying DVD is all you need to crank out at immense variety of winged wets, North Country spiders and soft hackles in general. It is like learning how to grill, saute, roast, braise, bake, steam, stir fry, poach, slow cook and broil for cooking..just change the ingredients and apply the same principles to get whatever you want as the result.

Dave Whitlock sells those two Wotton DVDs on his site, too. Also there on Whitlock's site is the PDF of Whitlock's 2011 article on old school wets which is well worth reading. I see he has another wet fly article coming out in the fall for Trout Unlimited's publication. I always enjoy reading Whitlock's articles; I'm looking forward to that one.

The books out there on wet fly fishing are not as informative on the actual fishing techniques. The DVD is key.

Could I ask if your swinging on a tight line, or fishing with a small bow in the line. With a bow the flies drift with the current rather than come up in the water. I've found you hook more fish with a bow, and get less snatches.

Either way it's a often neglected technique. On some waters approaching fish from downstream is difficult, so it's a good way to cover water not often fished. Thanks for the reminder.

Richard.

I'm fairly new to fly fishing, and I'm starting to think that wet flies might be what I'm looking for. I've got a 6' 2wt. I like casting dries but I don't get many hits. I don't like casting beadheads with an indicator, too much weight, I'd rather use a spinning rod. A wet fly with no indicator sounds like it might be perfect for me.