'Wet Flies - Tying, and Fishing Soft Hackles, Winged and Wingless Wets, and Fuzzy Nymphs' by Dave Hughes

Fishing wet flies was always a hostile chapter in my fly fisherman career. Reflecting to this statement, I tried to find a proper explanation. Of course there is more than one reason why I didn't used wet flies till now. When I started practicing fly fishing, I learned a lot from a fisherman who used exclusively nymphs, so I adopted this kind of fishing and when fish rose I took dries and never filled this lack of knowledge and practice till yet.

A goal for this year is to learn tying and fishing wet flies. A few weeks ago I started to look for an interesting book about wet flies. In the end I decided myself for 'Wet Flies - Tying, and Fishing Soft Hackles, Winged and Wingless Wets, and Fuzzy Nymphs' by Dave Hughes.This book made me see things completely different when's about wets and I'm sure it was the best choice I could make by buying it.

The book has four parts. In the 1st one, the author is talking about the subsurface world, the way wet fly fishing developed in North America and Europe during the years and he is sharing some of his fishing experience. 

The 2nd part is dedicated to fly tying, one chapter for each of this categories: soft hackle flies, wingless wets/flymph, traditional winged wets and fuzzy nymphs. You'll find solid information accompanied by a lot of pictures presenting fly tying step-by-step. Even most of the pictures are black & white, shouldn't stop you to get some great flies. At the end of the chapter you'll find also some coloured fly boards with the recipe for each fly.

In the 3rd part Dave Hughes is presenting the tackle for fishing subsurface flies, methods for fishing the surface but also the mid-depths.

The 4th and the last part is an entomology lesson which helped me to understand the relationship between wets and different stages of insects. 

This book is a 'must have' for each fly fisherman interested into wet fly tying and fishing. It filled my knowledge blanks and made me a huge appetite for tying wet flies and fishing them. I already started with tying the first of them, for fishing I'll have to wait till opening of the new season in March. As you can see I was pretty productive. I wish you a lot of fun with this book and hope it will be as useful for you as it was for me.

Withdrawal...

I don’t know how others are , but in my case if I have a longer fishing break, I become agitated, go into withdrawal, I’m sick. I tried to compensate the fishing during the last weeks with fly tying, what is great but I still miss the kick you get when a 2-3 lbs. fish is on the other end of the line. I decided to take a walk on the rivers shore after work and to take some pictures. A cold wind was blowing, strips of snow where spread here and there over the frozen ground. From time to time some rays made it trough the cloudy sky but not for too long. The water was clean but still high with no activity on the surface what is normal for this part of the year.

When I arrived on the shore it was like meeting an old friend. The stream didn’t changed much after the high water last month. I peered the shallow water in search for fish without luck. Some gulls where flying in small circles over the water surface. I reviewed the places where I caught nice fish last year, let my thoughts slide back in time and enjoyed again the drills played again and again in my mind.

After almost an hour, went home thinking about the surprises the stream will reserve me this year… making plans…and the wind was blowing cold and icy.

Elk/CDC Caddis Emerger

I found a few days ago some pictures of an elk/cdc caddis emerger on the internet without tying description. So I decided to tie it and to present it step-by-step. Here is my recipe:


Hook:        D04BL HW size 12-14
Thread:      STD 6/0 Col.06 (brown)
Abdomen:  Dubbing (green antron with some squirrel fur) covered by poly-yarn (yellow)
Thorax:      CDC Dubbing ( 2 compartiments ) covered by a grouse feather
Wing:         CDC under wing covered by an elk (deer) hair wing

1.Wax the thread and tie it aprox. till to the half of the shank.

2.Build the abdomen (mix of green antron and squirrel).

3.Cover the dubbing abdomen with some yellow poly-yarn fibers and burn them at the loose end and make    a basket by rubbing the ends with your fingers.

4.Tie a cdc under wing.

5.Use some elk/deer hair to make the wing.

6.Tie a grouse feather with whom you'll cover the thorax.

7.Split the thread and make a cdc dubbing brush.

8.Then build aprox. half of the thorax and cover it with the grouse feather but keep a few mm to the eye of the hook for a new cdc dubbing.

9.Split again your thread, make a new cdc brush ( the second one should be smaller ) and build the last part of the thorax till to the eye of the hook.

10. Cover it again with the grouse feather and whip finish. Use some head cement. Voilà this is the fly:

Feel free to modify the recipe as you want to and let me know about the fish you'll catch with this fly. 

A new start...

Till now I was posting about fly fishing, travelling and spin fishing all mixed in my old blog. I decided to use only this new one for the fly section. Enjoy it!