Is There a Better Way to Swing a Wet Fly

[afishinado]

Along with leaving some slack, some oldtimers that fished wets would not pinch the line against the cork, leave a loop and allow the reel to turn with little resistance the fish would hook themselves. As long as your reel is not too loose to cause a backlash, this method works well.

 

[MD_Gene]

I was out this evening to get revenge, Instead more of the same. I agree with all of the thoughts here. This evening: 6 fish with hard hits and sometime I could feel their weight, 4 to net and worst of all, 2 fish broke off at the hook knot.

I especially agree that allowing the fly to hang in the current at the end of the drift is critical. I got all of the hits (except one) after at least 5 seconds.

The one that I didn't get after the wait was- I let a fish go and my leader was past the end ferrel. I had to jiggle the rod to get the fly line out past the ferrel. I had about 10 feet of leader and tippet and bang another wild brown the fly.

 

[BruceC2C]

Last week, I had similar " just peeling line out preparing to cast" and nice brown trout 5 yards away startled me as he came out of nowhere ( in marginal holding water) to devour my stimulator.
AWESOME!!!!

 

[Baron]

I really have learned allot here. I was kind of tongue-in-cheek about notkeeping the tip up when using wet flies and also nymphs for trout. Since I started doing that, at the direction of another FF, I have been landing allot more fish. I see what you mean about setting the hook versus letting them catch themselves.

 

[dano]

afishinado wrote:
Along with leaving some slack, some oldtimers that fished wets would not pinch the line against the cork, leave a loop and allow the reel to turn with little resistance the fish would hook themselves. As long as your reel is not too loose to cause a backlash, this method works well.

This is pretty much what I was taught and what I do. Same technique for swinging streamers to steelhead. It gives the fish a chance to turn after it eats the fly and hopefully hooking the fish in the corner of the mouth.
But, I still miss my fare share of fish when the fly is dangled directly below me. That's just part of the game.