Wet Flies vs. Emergers

[fishingn00b101]

Hi everyone, I've only been fly fishing for a little under a year now. Although I'm from Western, PA I quickly fell in love with fly fishing. I was incredibly lucky enough to experience a green drake hatch on spruce creek this year, and I can honestly say there has been nothing that exciting I have ever experienced in my life. I wish I could go back and do it again a thousand more times.

Just a quick question, I've been doing a little reading about emergers lately, and I was wondering if anyone could explain to me the difference between an emerger and a wet fly, or if there even is one...I have so much to learn, and sometimes it can be a litttle overwhelming, and discouraging. However, I love fly fishing so much, nothing can seem to keep me away, even the plethora of information I need to learn to get, well...not absolutely terrible at fly fishing haha.

Any help you could offer would be great...

Sorry for being a complete dunce

Thanks for your help!

 

[Tigereye]

Not a dunce. Excellent question, I hope my answer is helpful.

It is not so much as to what type of fly you tied on but how it is fished.

Your classic winged wet fly ie (Hendririckson wet) is usually cast across or across and down, allowed to sink via line mending, then as the current pulls your line tight it swings and begins to raise from the bottom imitating an emerging insect.

Some say it may also imitate a minnow. Who knows what Mr. Salmo thinks. Anyone that says they do with out question, has the brains of a trout. (ie the size of pea)

An "emerger" fly is usually designed to float on the surface or in the surface film. It is usually fished like a dry fly.

I have had many successful outings using catskill type dryflies or caddis and "pulling them under" and fishing them in the film or slightly under, imitating an emerger or fly stuck in the surface film. This technique is usually discovered by mistake when the fly begins to drag and you get a strike. Sooner or later blockheads like me put 2 and 2 together and start fishing that way on purpose,

Another tactic is to use a "dropper". Tie on a large bushy dry fly, stimulator, hopper or similar and tie a short 8-10" dropper to the bend of the hook and on that a smallish nymph. Pheasant tails, cooper johns, BH Hares ear, etc. Fish the rig as you would a dry fly. The nymph is the emerger in this set up.

As you can see, there is a lot of crossover and a nymph, dry fly, wet fly and an emerger can all be fished as an "emerger".

I hope this isn't all to confusing. The simple answer is that an emerger imitates a bug somewhere in the hatching stage raising from the bottom to being stuck in the surface film. What fly you use to imitate this is your choice. How it is "fished" is what makes it an "emerger".

All the best
js

 

[fishingn00b101]

Acutally this helps a lot, thank you! I'm assuming you can even fish the green weenie as an emerger then? haha

Thank you for your help. The wet fly swing has alwasy been a challenge for me, and I have to admit I've only caught one fish ever off a nymph. I'm pretty sure I was euro style nymphing, and I haven't ever caught a fish off of a wet fly, at least not yet. I'm not too discouraged though, because I don't have easy access to the limestone streams of central pa. A lot of my fishing takes place in the Loyalhannah, which is acidic and gets pretty hot in the summer. I'm not always too sure if I'm even fishing at anything, or if the reality of the situation is another day of just practicing my casting and fly fishing technique, with no real hope of actually catching a fish haha.

This will help immensly though, thank you. You have given me a fuller understanding of the term "emerger." It seemed I couldn't get a clear answer on the subject. I was thinking it was a type of fly that was a mix between a wet and dry fly.

 

[Fishidiot]

Very good explanation from Tiger.

There is much overlap in terminology associated with fly fishing and this particular topic is certainly an example. My own simplified thoughts on this is that an emerger is fished in the surface film.
In other words, it is at the surface but much of the fly hangs downward below the surface. This is intended to imitate the actual "emergence" of the nymph in which it sheds its body shell and climbs out as a winged adult. This typically (but not always) occurs in the surface film or just barely below it. Flies fished to imitate this emergence are what are typically referred to as "emerger" patterns.
Traditional wet flies are usually associated with imitating the insect as it swims toward the surface. So a basic way of thinking about this is wet flies are fished from the bottom of the stream upward to within an inch or so of the surface; emergers are fished in that last inch or so, and mainly in the surface film.
Again, lots of room for overlap.

 

[Acristickid]

Emerger fishing can be very frustrating.

Using a wet fly or soft hackle is an excellent way to fish this type of fishing.

Probably my favorite way to fish. Leadwing coachman probably my favorite fly. Can be used for olives, caddis, Iso's and a variety of other bugs. Hard to fish it a wrong way too.

The use of a wet or soft hackle is a great fly to use as a tandum with a nymph.

Good luck.

 

[fishingn00b101]

Great, thanks for all the help! I guess yhte next step is learning how to read the stream properly, and knowing when to use an emerger. I can imagine it would be pretty fun to use like a dry fly. Watching the fish attack anything on the top part of the water is always a treat. I'm guessing there may be times when fish prefer an emerger over wet and dry flies, or it would have never come into existence in the first place? Is there a certain way to tell that fish are feeding off of emergers instead of anything else?

Is it ever prudent to use an emerger pattern during a hatch?

 

[Tigereye]

I have never fished a Limestone, Fishn, so we have something in common there. Though I would love to one day, PA has lots of good fishing out side of those. Not something to lose sleep over.

In a perfect world if I were to teach someone to fish wet flies here is what I would do. (I will probably be brow beat to death over this but here goes)

1. Fish over lots of fish. Do not go exploring or fish marginal waters. Pick a familiar stream that is stocked and fish it during optimal time ie spring.

2. Fish for dumb fish. Do not fish any of the special reg water. For now you want dumb fish. Alot of those SR areas have very educated fish. Tuff to learn when you are not catching.

3. Fish when the water is prime. Avoid high, muddy water and Low gin clear water.

4. Fish for hungry fish. If you are fishing water in the 55-65 range fish will actively feed.

5. Pick a good hatch to fish. For wet fly fishing I LOVE the March Brown. It will hatch spradically throughout the whole day and for some reason I think the fish actually prefer the wet fly over the dry fly.

6. Pick waters that have good population of March Browns. Check your local fly shop. I am sure they can help you . A google search shows the Loyalhanna has them.

7. Fish. The MB wet is almost impossible to fish incorrectly.

8. Make note of the type of water the fly is hatching on. The MB prefers cobbly bottoms, and tailouts about 1-3 feet. Fish these areas. You wont see many in pools,deep runs or sandy bottom areas.

I like to cast down and across and let fly swing about 1 foot under surface. When fly is directly downstream crawl it back with an occassional twist.

Try it this spring and let us know how you make out. PM me if you are in NE PA area next spring. The Lehigh has a great MB hatch

 

[fishingn00b101]

Haha that all sounds like great advice, thank you. Although I have to admit, I'm not sure how to tell the difference between dumb fish and smart fish. The Loyalhanna I'm sure does have a march brown hatch, but there was basically 0 bug activity every time I went down to the loyalhannah this year. To be honest, I'm not even sure it's not fished out by a couple of weeks after the beginning of trout season. I hate going at the start of trout season too because the stream is litered with more people than there are fish. Not only that, but they are all spin fisherman/bait fisherman with no stream etiquette. I'm not lying when I tell you I was tying a fly on in the middle of stream when I had a man park, open up his cell phone and proceed to walk no more than 15 yards from me talking on his cell. Not only was he talking loudly, to I don't even know who, for about 30 minutes, but he was casting right on top of me. And I can honestly tell you, almost every experience on the Loyalhannah is like that. Yikes. The Loyalhannah is never a very pleasant experience for me. Bait fisherman invade and conquer. The stream is stocked with fish for about 2 weeks before 99% of them are slaughtered. It shouldn't even be considered a sport after what people do to the fish. For that whole first month of trout season there is no use in even fighting the crowd of people, and by the time the people finally stop raping and pillaging the stream you'll be lucky to find even one trout. I sometimes feel like I would have more luck catching a fish in a glacier river in Alaska than in the Loyalhannah. (Fish can't survive in the glacier rivers because the temperature)

I have noticed the loyalhannah has a lot of stone flies though. Although I never see any fish going after them.

I will definitely try out all these techniques though. I only live about 2 1/2 hours away from the Little J, so I might try to head up there this weekend and try it out depending on the weather.

I will definitely PM you the next time I head up to north eastern PA. Thank you!

 

[gfen]

Tigereye wrote:
Tie on a large bushy dry fly, stimulator, hopper or similar and tie a short 8-10" dropper to the bend of the hook

If you use 8-10" of line between your dry and your dropper you will do a wonderful job of foul hooking fish. Try 18" instead. Your second fly will still ride only a couple inches at most below the surface.



Anyways, flies are flies. As stated, it doesn't matter what they call it, it's really a matter of how it's fished. You can fish whatever the hell you want at any point of the water column, and as long as it looks like food, it'll be eaten.

You want to fish a "traditional winged wet fly" as a dry fly, go for it. It'll sit in the water somewhere and look like food. A spent fly, a crippled fly, an emerging fly, a diving fly, etc. Same thing for a spider, which can look like just about anything as well.

You're mimicking food. Don't overthink it.

 

[dc410]

Good topic. I do agree with gfen on the length of the tippet to the dropper for his reason stated. As an insect struggles to shed its shuck in the surface film it is in a very vulnerable state. If the trout are looking up emerger patterns in the film can be very effective. However, my experience is a soft hackle wet fly moving up in the water column seems to be very hard for most feeding trout to ignore. Many times as a trout takes a swinging wet fly they will hook themselves as they take it and turn back down in one swift motion. Both of these types of presentations definitely have their time and place.

 

[Chaz]

You may be confusing wet flies with soft hackle flies. Many people use the term interchangeably, but as in the second post a wetly is usually fished downed across, quartering the fly downstream. A soft hackle fly can and is used that way, but many people also cast it quartering upstream, more like you would a dry fly.

Now here's the monkey wrench, I often have success fishing wet flies upstream, flies of the ducktail family work quite well this way. It's not the intended use that matters, it's the result.

Since you are a beginner, I'd say fish your traditional wet flies downstream and across though, it's much easier. Make sure you let the downstream flies drift to the end so that they rise in the current.

 

[dc410]

Chaz,

Your post clarifies that you can fish whatever you want, however you want and call it whatever you want. The main point of my post was that soft hackle flies catch a heck of a lot of fish!

 

[Paulson]

Something I have learned to do is fishing a nypmh with no weight and swinging it like a wet fly. Or a wet fly with a bit of floatent on it to keep it closer to the surface or below the film, imitating an emerger or even a crippled adult fly. You have to have a good understanding of what is happening in the water in general, that specific section, and the specific time.

It is an unorthodox method, but I have had moderate success doing just that.

 

[ukeyman]

Chaz, what exactly are " flies of the duck tail family ". Sorry, never heard that term before.

 

[shortrod2]

My take on the original question:

An "emerger" is a fly designed to imitate the stage of an aquatic insect between whatever it is when it has the ability to stand on top of the water surface and what it was before attempting to reach the surface.

A "wetfly" is a fly designed with materials that wil allow it to sink, but without the extra weight often apply to nymphs.

Many but not all emergers are also wet flies. Quill Gordon wet and Lafontaine deep emergent pupa are examples of emrgers that are wetflys. Klinkhammer is an example of an emerger that is not a wet fly.

Many but not all wet flies are emergers. Fies that imitate drowned ants, drowned mayfly spinners and live baetis diving egg layers are all wet flies but not emergers.

Hope this helps