wet vs. nymph

[ryguyfi]

What's the difference and what's the best way to fish each kind?

 

[jayL]

Its often just semantics, really.

A traditional wet usually has wings. picture a royal coachmen or something.

Heres the first link for "traditional wet fly" from google...
http://www.yagersflies.com/wet-fly-emergers.html.

If you google "wet fly" or "traditional wet fly" you can find all kinds of info. They are usually fished on the swing, where nymphs are dead drifted. Again, this is all semantics often.

Bundle streamers in there and you have a whole bunch of useless confusion on the subject...

I classify them as: Dries, subsurface non streamers... aka wets, and streamers. None of that helps me catch more trout, of course.

good luck

 

[jayL]

Also, i have been known to bypass the gink and catch lots of trout on sunken dries.

This would be a hackled wet, i guess. Unless, of course, its cdc. in which case, its a cdc emerger... which is... umm. hmm.

useless semantics!

lol

 

[FarmerDave]

ryguyfi wrote:
What's the difference and what's the best way to fish each kind?

The best way to fish each kind is with a fly rod, but one can use light spinning gear and a bobber. :-D

Nymph is an immature stage of most aquatic insects. for example, mayflies, dragonflies and stoneflies go from egg to nymph to adult. Anything that simulates the nymph stage, i would call a nymph pattern. Typically fished dead drifted near the bottom, or bouncing along the bottom. Anyway, I never fish them near the surface. Caddis do not have a nymph stage. Instead they go from egg to larval stage to pupa (like a butterfly but underwater) and then hatch into an adult.

Wet flies are more neutrally buoyant and are fished in or just below the surface film. they usually are for simulating an emerging insect. Fishing it on the swing simulates a caddis coming to the surface to fly away (among other things).

Some people include streamers as wet flies, but I don't.

 

[Maurice]

Nymphs are the adolescent stage of life for mayflies, caddisflies, and stoneflies. Most if not all of this stage is spent either near the bottom of the water column or under rocks and burried in the stream bed. There is a twice daily phenom called behavioral drift that occurs usually near dawn and dusk where nymphs drift freely to redistribute themselves in the water course.

To fish nymphs try to keep your fly near or on the bottom of the stream.

Wet flies can immitate several phases of life from emerging mayflies, caddisflies, etc to drowned adults or spinners.

It is best to immitate these phases during an active period of emergence or during a spinner fall when there are like insects up in the water column. Sometimes they are swimming up, swimming down (caddis egg laying) or dead drifting.

I believe it is safe to call any fly fished in the middle column a wet fly while nymphs are relegated to the bottom and emergers to the surface, in the surface film or just below.

In the old days streamers were called wets because they got, um...well, wet. Some of the traditional streamers or wet flies immitated baitfish and crayfish and were very elaborately tied, similar to and some of the traditional salmon flies of old.

But I believe today we are talking about "wets" we mean leadwing coachmen, partridge & orange, green, yellow. and the like, both soft hackled and winged wets.

HTH,
Maurice

 

[tomgamber]

My most successful wet fly is a tent wing caddis dry that sinks at the end of its drift. My most successful nymph is a hare's ear in whatever color I fell appropriate. and as some alreay said. I usually fish my nymphs deep and dead and my wet flies with some movement or drag.

 

[Chaz]

It depends on what you mean by a wet fly, what most guys mean is a soft hackle imitation of a hatching insect, not a good choice this time of the year unless there is a hatch in progress. If however you mean a traditional wet fly it is a good choice, a traditional wet fly is meant to imitate a fish or some other aquatic resident that has a skeleton, they usually have a "wing" but they aren't bugs except in the case of salmon flys. Traditional salmon flies are meant to imitate just about anything from butterflies to crayfish.

 

[troutbert]

Try this. Tie a weighted nymph on the end of your leader, and a wet fly on a dropper up the leader a ways.

How to fish this setup. Cast out into creek. Let drift with current. When a trout hits, set the hook.

 

[MKern]

When I was a newbie, I use to think that a wet fly was anyfly that was under the surface of the water.--- Which is one way you can look at it.
Another way is... to think of nymphs as premature aquatic insects and wet flies as flies that resemble dry flies but with slanted back wings and a hackle nt meant to hold it on the surface of the water.
As far as fishing tips: Everyone pretty much got it so far (nymphs on the bottom, adn wet flies in the water column. All around, nymphs will probably catch you more fish and on a consistant basis.

 

[Biggie]

The best "wet" fly I ever used is a black ant (dry fly) with a split shot added and fished wet. The trout slam it on every crick I fish it.

 

[FarmerDave]

Maurice wrote:
Nymphs are the adolescent stage of life for mayflies, caddisflies, and stoneflies...

HTH,
Maurice

Maurice, I hate to disagree with you, but caddis do not have a nymph stage. they go from egg, to larvae to pupa to adult just like a butterfly. Believe it or not, they are actually related to butterflies (or so I have read) only the larval and pupa stage are under water. Some might consider this knitpicking and I apologize for that, but some might find it important to know especially when fishing some of the northern PA streams dominated by caddis. That still does not stop me from using numph patterns in those same streams though.

 

[tomgamber]

I don't thin Mo will argue you that but this is aimed at a newbie and I think that might be TMI at this point. Its only nitpicking to the point that for a beginners purposes its better to K.I.S.S.

 

[FarmerDave]

Good point Tom.

I was just thinking that is someone is wanting to "match the hatch" ... but you are right.

That said, I think a prince nymph is not a half bad imitation of a caddis that has broken free and drifting along the bottom. I like that fly because it looks a little like a lot of things. It's one of my go to flies when nothing is happening.