You Favorite Wet Fly Patterns

[nomad_archer]

So what are your favorite wet fly patterns? what time of the year and what conditions do you like to fish the pattern(s)? During a specific hatch?

For a little more context. I am kind of in the mood to try may hand at tying some wets. It seems like I will need but purchase a few or all of the materials for the patterns I have found so far. Before I go and spend the money I wanted to see what the favorites are here on PAFF. As always thanks in advance.

- Nomad

 

[troutbert]

Wingless Hares Ear

body: Hare's ear dubbing, with gold or copper wire rib.

hackle: grouse or partridge

tail: grouse or partridge (or no tail)

Size: mostly 14 and 16

Good general pattern, but especially good when there are tan caddis around.

 

[bigjohn58]

I always used a Picket Pen and a Gold Ribbed Hares Ear.

Picket Pen:
Body: peacock hurl
Tail: brown feather material of choice
Wrap with brown hackle
Wing: squirrel tail

Gold Ribbed Hares Ear:
same as above but I prefer the duck or goose feather wing on top.

 

[Chaz]

Mickey Finn.

 

[kobalt335]

Starling and Herl

Body is peacock herl and the hackle is either starling or i also use partridge.

Very simple and effective

 

[afishinado]

troutbert wrote:
Wingless Hares Ear

body: Hare's ear dubbing, with gold or copper wire rib.

hackle: grouse or partridge

tail: grouse or partridge (or no tail)

Size: mostly 14 and 16

Good general pattern, but especially good when there are tan caddis around.

+1 ^

A great general use pattern that seems to work just about everywhere and anytime.

You can fish it as a wet unweighted, add a splitshot or tie some with a bead and/or lead wire to the shank and fish it as a nymph.

 

[nomad_archer]

Awesome. Thanks for the recommendations. Keep them coming. So far I can tie the majority of what was mentioned and all I need to pick up is a squirrel tail.

 

[Wild_Trouter]

I like this thread. I thought guys who fished wet flies were a dying breed! You've gotten some great suggestions so far. The Picket Pin is one of my all around favorites and is very easy to tie. You can also vary the color of the peacock herl- see Jann's Netscraft for other colored herl. My other favorites are:

1. Queen of the Waters;
2. Leadwing Coachman/Alder Wet;
3. McGinty;
4. Pheasant Tail Wet.

 

[Dave_W]

Wild_Trouter wrote:
I like this thread. I thought guys who fished wet flies were a dying breed!

I like this thread too.

There are a few of us (maybe more in recent years) who fish traditional wets. I'm not a hard core wet guy, but I do use them a lot in the springtime.

Hopefully Wetfly01 and Shakey will chime in - they're some hard core wet guys.

 

[Dave_W]

As far as patterns go, I like anything with partridge soft hackle. I usually tie 'em in light brown and green bodies. Keep 'em sparse and slender.

 

[GenCon]

Lots and lots of great flys suggested here. For me the breadcrust is one of my favorites. Imagine that.
Beyond that. I use many of the flys listed above. Another favorite is Sylvester Nemes Mothers day caddis. Which works well for any dark caddis imitations. Grannoms, Chimarra's in 14 and 16. I do 14's for grannoms and 16's for the latter.

GenCon

 

[dc410]

The Usk Naylor is probably one of my top three "go to" wet fly patterns. Something about that purple silk on a darker soft hackle fly that just seems to get a lot of takes. GenCon's breadcrust is a really great fly as well. Lots of great patterns mentioned above.

 

[redietz]

I fish wets 80% of the time. Here's a partial list, first by season:

Late winter/early spring: brown hackle/peacock, list Spanish Needle (winter stones)

April: Dark Hendrickson wet, Waterhen Bloa, Quill Gordon wet, Snipe and Purple

Sulfur time: Partridge and Yellow, Little Marryat, Pheasant tail soft hackle, Sulfur soft hackle, Light Cahill wet

Isos: Lead wing coachman, brown hackle/peacock

Summer: wet ants, small soft hackles

Generally through out the year:

Partridge and Orange - especially when I might otherwise use a rusty spinner, but whenever I can't decide what else to use

March Brown Flymph -- generically, or for tan caddis

Pheasant Tail soft hackle (sizes 18-22) -- whenever there are olives on the water, also as a midge emerger

Partridge and Green -- caddis emerger

Dark Watchet -- works better in spring creeks than freestones, although I'm not sure why

I also frequently fish a Renegade as a wet fly.

Those are just favorites, I fish a lot more simply for sake of variety.

If you're new to wets, you might want to look at Dave Huges' book Wet Flies. It's oriented towards the West, but still a wealth of information

 

[nomad_archer]

GenCon wrote:
Lots and lots of great flys suggested here. For me the breadcrust is one of my favorites. Imagine that.
Beyond that. I use many of the flys listed above. Another favorite is Sylvester Nemes Mothers day caddis. Which works well for any dark caddis imitations. Grannoms, Chimarra's in 14 and 16. I do 14's for grannoms and 16's for the latter.

GenCon

Any tips to dealing with splitting the grouse tail feather?

 

[wbranch]

What's a wet fly?

 

[nomad_archer]

redietz wrote:
I fish wets 80% of the time. Here's a partial list, first by season:

Late winter/early spring: brown hackle/peacock, list Spanish Needle (winter stones)

April: Dark Hendrickson wet, Waterhen Bloa, Quill Gordon wet, Snipe and Purple

Sulfur time: Partridge and Yellow, Little Marryat, Pheasant tail soft hackle, Sulfur soft hackle, Light Cahill wet

Isos: Lead wing coachman, brown hackle/peacock

Summer: wet ants, small soft hackles

Generally through out the year:

Partridge and Orange - especially when I might otherwise use a rusty spinner, but whenever I can't decide what else to use

March Brown Flymph -- generically, or for tan caddis

Pheasant Tail soft hackle (sizes 18-22) -- whenever there are olives on the water, also as a midge emerger

Partridge and Green -- caddis emerger

Dark Watchet -- works better in spring creeks than freestones, although I'm not sure why

I also frequently fish a Renegade as a wet fly.

Those are just favorites, I fish a lot more simply for sake of variety.

If you're new to wets, you might want to look at Dave Huges' book Wet Flies. It's oriented towards the West, but still a wealth of information

Thank you for all of that info. With the Waterhen Bloa what do you use for the hackle? It seems waterhen is not readily available.

 

[redietz]

nomad_archer wrote:
With the Waterhen Bloa what do you use for the hackle? It seems waterhen is not readily available.

Actually, I use waterhen. (I hoard the stuff.) You can substitute coot (use the wing coverts) or a dun hen hackle.

Waterhen/moorhen is (more or less) the same as the common gallinule in this country. There's a season for them if you either hunt or know someone who does.

 

[Bamboozle]

Snipe & Purple

Version 1: Purple Pearsalls & Snipe

Version 2: Violet 38 gauge Artistic Wire (craft wire) & Snipe

 

[JeffK]

The list is all good. Hare's ears of some form have been around centuries, so you can't go wrong there. The partridge and whatever are also time tested.

For olives, I like a size 19 starling and dark body. I don't think the body means much - purple silk, brown and olive silk, primrose silk with cobbler's wax (a la Greenwell's Glory), dark dubbing in natural or synthetic have all worked for me.

Sulphurs are a great hatch - have some yelllow or dark abdomen/ light head (for emergers) patterns. All mentioned are good, there are others. Back in the 60's when wets were more used I always found the better fishermen had a row of yellow wets.

Coachman is the classic Iso pattern. I like a simplified version of a peacock herl body with 3 herls cut to length as a tail with a brown soft hackle collar on a longer hook.

Williams Favorite (black thread, silver rib, black hen hackle) is good for midges. Guess it is a wet fly Zebra Midge - although it was around 150 years before the Zebra Midge.

I like a mixture of bright flies with natural colored flies. The recommendations here cover more on the natural colored end, and all are good. For the bright flies I like the Teal, Blue, and Silver (used to use Silver Doctor, but this fishes similar and is easy to tie) and the Peter Ross.

For dark caddis days, I like Pass Lake and either grey hackle peacock or brown hackle peacock. Breadcrust is great, but I don't like preparing the stems for the ribbing.

Finally, a couple of PA flies from the Al Troth catalog of the 70's are the Red #censor# Kelso and the Uncle Phil. Why not try to use some old PA favorites.

 

[NPflychucker]

I don't keep many traditional wets in my box but the 2 that always have a spot are the dark Hendrickson and light cahill. I do enjoy fishing them and probably don't use them as much as I should.