Wet fly fishing a beginners guide

Introduction

Many years ago on the River Ribble, I caught my first brown trout on a Partridge and Orange Spider using traditional wet fly fishing tactics. It was followed by two further trout on the spider.

Since then, I have caught 100’s of trout and grayling on wet-flies. In addition, I have caught plenty of sea trout and a few salmon on traditional wet-flies, especially on the Welsh Dee.

Using wet-flies to catch trout & grayling dates back hundreds of years, long before the use of the dry-fly. For the novice angler wet-fly fishing is a good starting place because it often produces results quickly. Furthermore, it is the logical first step in the learning process that can be built on by mastering the skills of imitating the hatching, which that are necessary to consistently catch trout on the dry-fly.

More often than not, the use of wet flies often will out fish the dry-fly on the Welsh Dee; mainly because trout & grayling are primarily subsurface feeders, even when flies are hatching. Therefore, mastering the art of wet-fly fishing provides the angler with another approach to catch fish when the other techniques fail. In addition, as evening approaches and the light starts to fade it extends your fishing time into nightfall. Furthermore, as the light fades on summer evenings, I often pick up sea trout and the occasional salmon on traditional wet-fly patterns.

Equipment:

On the equipment front you can use almost any standard fly rod and an appropriately matched reel. My preference for the Welsh Dee is a soft-action, 9ft-6”, 6wt rod and a standard weight forward floating line. However, 9 to 11ft rods of 4 to 7wt can be used effectively. I normally fish a team of three flies on tapered leader with a total length of 9 to 12ft. In windy conditions, I use a 9ft leader and maybe just 2 flies because is less prone to tangle; otherwise, I use a 12ft leader with three flies 3ft apart.

The technique:

Technique is much more important than the equipment and is the overriding factor that determines how successful you will be. Fortunately, the approach is relatively straight forward, it just needs practice. Master the following approach and you will catch plenty of trout and grayling on the Welsh Dee and most other rivers:

If you are unable to see where the fish are, I find the best approach is to mentally divide the riffle or glide into 2 or 3 lanes. Then starting with the first lane cast the wet flies up and across stream at about a 45° angle to position 1.

Allow the flies to dead-drift, drag-free and strike at any visible takes of movement in the line while drifting past position 2.

At point 3 make an upstream mend to eliminate any drag on the flies.

As the flies drift below you, point 4, add small upstream mends in the line every metre of drift, this often induces a take.

When the flies reach point 5, raise the rod about 30° in the air and continue to add short mends while watching for induced takes. The raised rod dampens the often, violent takes and hence assists in hooking the fish.

Close to the end of the swing, point 6, move the rod-tip up-and-down as the flies swing round to the dangle, which often stimulates a take from fish that are following the fly round.

When the flies reach point 8, pull the flies upstream by retrieving line and raising the rod to lift the top fly out of the water and making it skates along the surface, the middle fly should wake in the surface, while the last fly is kept just below the surface.

Next lower the rod-tip so the flies sink and drift downstream and the repeat the above step a couple of time until the flies are ready for the recast.

I normally repeat this process by targeting a slightly different position in lane 1. Then cast further out to cover lane 2 etc.

As you can see there is a little more to effective wet-fly fishing than casting the flies across the river and letting the drift round to the dangle below you. However, with practice the above method produces to spine-tingling takes, typically larger fish and is a rewarding way of fishing most trout rivers.

When and Where to fish:

On the Welsh Dee I will fish Wet Flies on-and-off all year round, especially when:

when there is sign of surface fly activity and the fish seem to be refusing the dry fly;

as evening approaches and into nightfall, especially during July and August because of the bonus of picking up sea trout;

in places where it is difficult to fish the fly with the other methods

Wet Fly Patterns:

There is a plethora of wet flies to choose from but for this article I’m going to highlight a limited selection that I have found work well on the Welsh Dee. I have organised them in teams that I tend to use as my go-to selection that tend to fish well during the various months of season (left to right : top dropper to point fly):