Swingin’ wets

dc410

dc410

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 14, 2012
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3,090
City
Lancaster, PA
I stopped by a delayed harvest section of stream in Central PA yesterday for my first trout fishing outing of the year. I had never fished this stream ever before, but knew it was there. I only fished for a little over an hour and absolutely smashed ‘em on wet flies. I was fishing a three fly wet fly rig and caught 10 fish (8 rainbows and 2 browns). I caught 2 fish on the top fly, 3 fish on the middle fly and the size 12 Breadcrust stole the show with 5 fish taken on the point. The bugs were moving on this sunny day at midday. I saw Quill Gordon’s, Hendricksons, midges and caddis coming off. The fish were definitely working all levels of the water column and even though they were all stocked fish - they knew what bugs were! It was definitely what I needed to knock the rust off. Dang, that was a lot of fun!

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Swinging the old wet flies can be one of the most exciting methods to fish. A few years ago I used only classic wet flies all year recording my catch to compare my fish landed with other years. At the end of the year I found my catch was the same as using more traditional flies.
 
dc410 said:
I caught 2 fish on the top fly, 3 fish on the middle fly and the size 12 Breadcrust stole the show with 5 fish taken on the point.
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Be careful of what you conclude from that. The real star there was probably your middle fly. Conventional wisdom (which my experience tends to confirm) is that if you were fishing three of the same fly, you can expect 60% of the fish on the point fly, 30% on the top dropper and 10% on the middle fly. The fact that you caught more on the middle fly than on the top dropper and almost as many as on the point says that fly was a winner.
 
When you guys fish three wets, do you rig them all inline? Like one fly tied to the next and that one is tied to the next, all by their eyelets?
 
redietz said:
Conventional wisdom (which my experience tends to confirm) is that if you were fishing three of the same fly, you can expect 60% of the fish on the point fly, 30% on the top dropper and 10% on the middle fly.
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If that is true, you could just fish one wet fly and do pretty well, with much easier rigging then with the traditional 3 wet flies.

And much easier dis-entangling from tree branches.
 
jifigz said:
When you guys fish three wets, do you rig them all inline? Like one fly tied to the next and that one is tied to the next, all by their eyelets?
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I tie my droppers as tag ends coming off the leader. Each tag is about 3” long. Due to that I rarely change the top 2 flies and any change in flies involves the bottom fly.

The WetFly master, Dave Albaugh, has a neat system of changing out flies with loops he ties. He uses big flies and high test line. I like what he does.
 
jifigz said:
When you guys fish three wets, do you rig them all inline? Like one fly tied to the next and that one is tied to the next, all by their eyelets?
Click to expand...
On my three fly rig, my top and middle flies are tied off of a small (less than 1/4” in length) dropper loop tied into the leader. I use a short (4-6”) 10 or 12lb piece of Maxima Ultragreen tied with a clinch knot off of the dropper loops. The stiffer material keeps the upper flies extended from the actual leader itself. I try to minimize any false casting with this rig but I generally have very few tangles. I catch enough fish on this set up to give me a lot of confidence that the fish aren’t leader shy with the stiff droppers when they are looking up and slashing and turning on swinging wet flies. Catching doubles are not all that uncommon when fishing with this technique of wet fly fishing. To me it’s a very relaxing and productive way to flyfish.
 
dc410 said:
On my three fly rig, my top and middle flies are tied off of a small (less than 1/4” in length) dropper loop tied into the leader. I use a short (4-6”) 10 or 12lb piece of Maxima Ultragreen tied with a clinch knot off of the dropper loops. The stiffer material keeps the upper flies extended from the actual leader itself. I try to minimize any false casting with this rig but I generally have very few tangles. I catch enough fish on this set up to give me a lot of confidence that the fish aren’t leader shy with the stiff droppers when they are looking up and slashing and turning on swinging wet flies. Catching doubles are not all that uncommon when fishing with this technique of wet fly fishing. To me it’s a very relaxing and productive way to flyfish.
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I use dropper loops on my 2 and 3 wet fly rigs as well but not quite as heavy dropper tippet. Going to have to give that a try.
 
jifigz said:
When you guys fish three wets, do you rig them all inline? Like one fly tied to the next and that one is tied to the next, all by their eyelets?
Click to expand...
I don’t even bother with droppers.
I always use a wingspan of tippet with the flies close to evenly spaced.
One fly near the leader, and the middle fly with a simple overhand knot with the doubled tippet.
The end fly gets a double surgeon knot or a clinch knot.
My connection to the leader is usually loop to loop
 
shakey said:
I always use a wingspan of tippet with the flies close to evenly spaced.
One fly near the leader, and the middle fly with a simple overhand knot with the doubled tippet.
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I understand your overall concept, Shakey, but I’m really curious about the “simple overhand knot with the doubled tippet” on your top fly and middle fly? Do you then clip off the remaining loop of tippet material after you seat those knots? Have you ever had that knot fail on you if you get into a good fish? I’m just very inquisitive about these different systems. This is good stuff!
 
troutbert said:
If that is true, you could just fish one wet fly and do pretty well, with much easier rigging then with the traditional 3 wet flies.

And much easier dis-entangling from tree branches.
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Yes, that's true if you were to fish three of the same fly; in fact if you were thinking of doing that, I'd recommend fishing only one fly. However, there are decided benefits to fishing multiple flies even if only one were doing the bulk of the catching.

The reason that the point fly gets the most fish is that it's usually the first fly the fish sees. If you take a fish on one of the droppers, the point fly was already refused.
 
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I had my most productive fishing experience ever today fishing a two fly system. The point fly was an #18 blue quill emerger and tied off the 3” tag end of a blood knot was an #18 BWO emerger. I caught multiple fish and missed several as well. Another angler was watching me from the bank and asked what I was using because of the continuous activity. I simply cast an open loop towards the bank, mend the line, and introduce small strips of line during the swing to entice the fish. After several casts, I take three steps downstream and repeat. I gave him some of the flies I was using and had him stand beside me to watch my method. Within several casts he was on to fish. I caught over 20 trout using this method. The flies are simple to tie, ossum possum dubbing, muskrat for the emerging wing and mallard fibers for legs and tail.
 
dc410 said:
I understand your overall concept, Shakey, but I’m really curious about the “simple overhand knot with the doubled tippet” on your top fly and middle fly? Do you then clip off the remaining loop of tippet material after you seat those knots? Have you ever had that knot fail on you if you get into a good fish? I’m just very inquisitive about these different systems. This is good stuff!
Click to expand...
There is no remaining tippet . The flies go down the tippet in a straight line.
By doubled tippet, I simply mean the piece that goes in and the piece that goes out of the fly.
You pull the fly, form a loop with the two pieces,put the fly through, lubricate and pull tight-ish. Sometimes I leave a little of the loop for movement, sometimes I don’t.
I have never had one of these knots fail, that I can remember.
Sometimes my clinch knots fail, due to tyer’s error.
 
I do generally use fairly heavy tippet, and I tend to use flies that are larger than most other people
 
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