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Wet Fly Comparison  

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I want to thank everyone for voting and if you haven't voted on the previous wet fly poll here is a link.

 

This poll is multiple choice.

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I find a soft hackle one of the easiest flies to tie, more complex wets and spey type flies have multiple hackles such as 'body' and 'throat', if you use these types of hackling then a soft hackle appears relatively easy. The hardest part of course is wings, setting, getting the right length and size. Applies to hair and feathers. Interesting tho.

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Marrying wings has to be up there with hard techniques. Get one side perfect, turn the fly and blink.pngrolleyes.gif

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My reply is in your old thread, which we have brought back to life. Never mind...Copy and paste it here.

 

"HS, IMO winged wets were never tied to actually simulate anything in the water, rather to please the eye of the tyer. Almost all wings of insects in the water are transparent, or not even popped out until they hit surface. The quiver of the hackle on a soft hackle gives that appearance of life as it tries to struggle to the surface. A Parmachene Belle might be a beautiful tie when done by a good wing man, but a simple floss and hackle on a light wire hook between 14-18 does a much better job or representing life in the water. For those larger bugs I like a flat segmented woven body with soft hackle in front of a small bead with dubbing way up front."

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I agree about wings in real insects. I will repeat something from another thread, that winged wets will(may) swim properly in currents that make soft hackles fail. In doing so winged wet can(might) provide a more pleasing shape to the fish. I have certainly viewed my box differently since reading this and I would say the fly looks to swim better than persisting with a hackled wet. Not enough fish yet to say they prefer it.

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I think i am really confused now, we are talking size 12 - 18 or something? Married wings on that size i have never even heard of, i never even imagined wings on a wet were supposed to be insect wings? It is quite bizarre without context, we know salmon do not feed once they have entered the fresh and we are trying to piss them off and get an aggressive take, if i swing a soft hackle i am targeting feeding trout. Just confusing, like comparing a dry fly to a clouser.

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As with all fly tying one of the most important rules apply to wet flies. "Fly tying is like computing... Garbage in, garbage out." Its as simple as that. If you want to tie flies with married wings then getting the right feathers for tying married wings makes the process possible, and much easier. The problem comes when, usually the beginner, tries to do an advanced technique using inferior materials, which the most experienced tiers would struggle with. The technique is then viewed as almost impossible and the preserve of a few "fly tying deities".

 

The same thing can happen with soft hackle flies. (My fly tying heritage is from England's North Country, I grew up with the traditional spiders) One great example is the Waterhen Bloa. I have not seen one tied by anybody in the last 20 years that comes close to the old pattern. This is simply because one of the materials is not available. The dubbing that is called for is not, as most people believe, mole. It should be water rat (vole) Which is similar in every respect except staple length, it is over 3 times as long. The desired effect for the body is a haze of dubbing through which you can see the thread. This is next to impossible to achieve with mole, but easy with water rat. A clear case of the right material making the fly possible to tie.

 

In the 1950s Hardy supplied many trout flies with married wings down to size 14. I've never seen smaller ones.

 

It is also not enough to just say "wet fly". Here (in the UK) the term would not be used to describe a salmon fly, these would be described as, well, salmon flies. You have divided wet flies into two categories, winged, and soft hackle. I would maintain that there should be more. Would nymphs and pupae come under the umbrella definition of wet flies? There are wet flies that are attractor flies, designed to illicit the response FlyFishin'Jam so eloquently described, and others that are imitative. The line between the two being very blurred.The Black Pennel is said to represent a midge pupa, and is an extremely effective fly. Adding a wing of grey duck primary feather slips gives you the equally effective Blae and Black, what it represents I have no idea. I do know though that it catches a lot of trout.

 

Also there are many kinds of wet fly wing. Paired feather slips are probably what you are thinking off. These days though, most of my wet flies are tied with rolled or folded feather wings. Faster, easier and just as effective.

 

Many of the problems faced in tying are of our own invention. Material selection is a major one that is often a topic here. The simple, but unsaid, truth is, if you don't have the materials, you can't tie the fly. There are sometimes alternatives, sometimes the alternatives work, sometimes they don't. Jackdaw scalp for water hen wing coverts does, mole for water rat doesn't.

 

Cheers,

C.

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Great conversation. I am learning a lot. First I would like to clarify the subject and by no means trying to limit the scope of the discussion, the poll although under wet flies is a comparison between 2 types. It is true there are numerous types and categories of wet flies, those being any fly tied to be underwater but my poll is a comparison between two. Please do not limit the discussion, this is just being done for clarity.

 

FF'Jam you are like most of us in being confused about the wing on a wet fly. I am reading up on Carrie Stevens at the moment and she does indirectly answer a lot of my questions about that. Such as her method of construction was designed as such because it gave a more life like movement of a minnow. This gave me thought to the reason for the wing as not only as a profile but for the simple dynamics of acting like a rudder in water. How it creates movement in the water. Piker20 gave reference to the failure of the soft hackle in certain currents.

 

I guess this is one lesson I am learning by studying just 2 types of wet flies. It is not just the profile or colour, there is the other secret as to why some flies produce more tight lines than others, the actual structural design. I would venture that having a wet fly with married wings such as the Silver Doctor is not used as much anymore but they exist and some are still successful.

 

I know from experience how confusing fly tying can be when starting, it is a bit overwhelming. The wings on the wets were my puzzler. The forums or books under 'the classics' were a bit intimidating at first and to be honest they still can be at times but as I read the books, blogs and classic forums I am learning how the designer of those classic were designed, simply put 'to catch fish'. The more experienced tiers of wings in the classic forum here are very helpful, go over and start reading their posts. You never know you might have a 'aha' moment like I did with Carrie Stevens.

 

I am not trying to end the conversation, just trying to clarify a few things and share what I have learnt. vicrider if it helps Carrie Stevens tied her streamers down to a size 10. Which surprised me. Crackaig thank you for a informative post.

 

What Intrigues me is that Crackaig tweaked a memory and that was a nagging question of ' do wet flies with wings represent certain insects or minnows? '.

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i still don't understand the comparison between the 2, yes a tandem 10/0 Marlin fly is a wet fly, a size 20 soft hackle is a wet fly, much the same way a salmon pattern is a wet fly. I think the soft hackle wet and the winged streamer are 2 entirely different things.

It all comes down to your foundations when dealing with wings, you must have a nice area to tie them in on, too much material behind the tie in point and they will sit upright and not low, the tie in point must also be clear of rachis and excess material. To get the fly to 'swim' properly your wingset has to be perfect, your fly has to be balanced, too much throat and it will flip on it's side, too much material and the same thing. Compare this to a soft hackle which like a wooly bugger is tied in the 'round' so balance is of little consequence.

I see too many flies tied with far too much material, crowded eyes, enormous heads, too long a wing which will foul on the first cast. Makes me wonder if people actually fish? Example... a spey fly which inherently is fairly unstable due to design when tied in a balanced way will flutter on the swing between current speeds, you get one element wrong such as too much throat and now it will 'slide' on its side, in other words pretty useless. The wing acts like a sail on a sailboat, or as someone mentioned like a rudder, it is fairly simple hydrodynamics. You can get a lightly weighted crazy charlie to swim hook point up by just using a wing where if it had no wing it would swim hook point down or sideways.

I think Horseshoes mentioned that say a classic silver doctor is perhaps not used much these days, BUT take a look at the east coast of Canada, i know people posting them, fishing them, showing them off every day. Tied small like an 8 or 6 i hear it is just killer and they sure do look beautiful, Interesting a quick flick through the directory of salmon and steelhead flies reveals 100's of patterns originated in Eastern Canada, and have a look at 'speypages' it is classic madness where anything without a wing is simply too plebeian to fish...I will quote something i saw on another forum tho with all this harking back to the classics. " It is good to remember there will be a lot more steelhead caught on a piece of yarn, than all the fanciest flies ever fished."

It is a good topic if we are talking about winged 'wet' flies, sorry if i was too eloquent before but i was just a bit confuzzled...And yep with representation like Crackaig said imitative, suggestive and the ones to piss em' off. :P

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FFJam the comparison is between the two wets, which is more difficult to tie? I am comparing the two side by side for you to choose. In comparison to the the winged I find the soft hackle easier to tie. I'm sorry if this is confusing you, maybe someone else can explain it better. unsure.png

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Oh yep, but that is obvious tho...Hmm i have not had any coffee in two days now.

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