Wet Fly Fishing
by
Eugene Macri

The Wet Fly and Wet Fly Fishing is one of the most effective methods of taking trout and other game fish but is not utilized by fly fishermen enough especially in the United States. Wet flies and wet fly methods and techniques can take more trout than dry flies and can often take bigger trout. Furthermore, with declining hatches and less trout rising properly used wet flies can consistently take selective trout even from the hardest fished waters. Then why are wet flies and wet fly fishing so neglected? Well part of the reason is that too many fly anglers watch fishing shows on television where they constantly see rising trout and fly anglers catching them on dry flies. I won't go in to some of the tom foolery here except to say that it often takes these anglers days and days to shoot 20 minutes of video for the episode and these are often on the so called best streams where trout are supposed to be rising. I live and fish the limestone spring creeks of South-Central Pennsylvania. These are the best dry fly streams in the world or shall I say---were--- many years ago. Even these streams have suffered degradation and trout don't rise like they once did.

Yet, a properly presented wet fly can still take a lot of selective trout on the world's toughest streams. The other reason fly anglers don't use wet flies is that they believe the newer patterns and so called techniques are better than the old fashioned wet fly methods. What they don't know is that wet fly fishing is just as complex and maybe even more so than most of their other methods. In other words, most fly anglers don't know enough about wet flies and wet fly fishing. You can learn a lot about wet fly fishing by reading the classic works on wet fly fishing and nymph fishing by Stewart (The Practical Angler), Tod (Wet Fly Fishing), Skues (Way of a Trout with a Fly) and others. However, these old books are expensive and not easy to come by except for this website where you can have a Classic Fishing Library on one DVD. It's well worth your investment considering the knowledge you'll gain. You find a wealth of resources on wet flies, wet fly patterns and methods and techniques on this site---so good fishing! While you are at it sign up for our free Fly Fishing Tips and Secrets. You'll really enjoy them.