Do we really need wings.

[hopper]

Think we will have to agree to differ on that one Mike

[Traditionalist]

I also think you need to take into account what food is available,rich waters with a lot of food available makes fish more choosy almost,wheras in a poor water fish will have a go at something life like because they are hungry and don't want to let a meal slip by. More so on rivers,but I'm sure it applies to lochs as well and not just trout of course.

That can make a difference, but it is hard to evaluate. In some fairly barren streams and lochs the trout will often grab more or less anything, but NOT if it is behaving suspiciously. Fish are instinctively wary of anything that does not behave naturally. Small imitative flies that swim are not behaving naturally.

[Traditionalist]

Think we will have to agree to differ on that one Mike

No problem, there are a lot of people who learned to fish like that and use it all the time, and also insist that it is a good method. The only thing that baffles me with that is how would they know if they have never tried anything else?

[Traditionalist]

i'd agree that pulling a fly through the water could only imitate a small fish, down and across similarly but some nymphs move at a surprising rate, these movements are subtle, twitchy short rapid movements, nothing can move at the rate they are generally pulled but lots of things swim and move about about down there.

Indeed, more or less everything that lives under water can move in some fashion or other, but the DEGREE of movement varies widely. Small drowned insects can hardly move at all, much less across or against a current. In most cases flies with minimal movement which are otherwise good imitations work best. In the case of drowned winged flies, or spent spinners and the like most do not move at all, and if an artificial does in such a situation it will most often be ignored or refused by the fish.

It all depends on what you are trying to imitate and how good your imitations are, this includes the correct movement. When you get the right combination you can catch a lot of fish. Other methods work less well.

With many winged wet flies it is more or less impossible to know what the fish take them for, might be small fish, beetles, etc.  This does work but not as often and not as well as methods which use good imitations and  take the correct movement ( if any) into account.  When fishing down and across in the traditional manner it is quite impossible to produce the correct movement. There are also other major problems with the method.

[hopper]

I enjoy nothing better than dry fly up through the runs but often we catch more and better up here on the small streams down and across, maybe that's how the fish like their lunch presented to them in the northeast. When learning to fish all those years ago when kids could just disappear for the day with no worries to the parents i would fish the club water down about 4 miles wet fly have lunch turn about put on the dries and fish the runs i had bypassed on the way down all the way back to where i had left my bike.

[Traditionalist]

I enjoy nothing better than dry fly up through the runs but often we catch more and better up here on the small streams down and across, maybe that's how the fish like their lunch presented to them in the northeast. When learning to fish all those years ago when kids could just disappear for the day with no worries to the parents i would fish the club water down about 4 miles wet fly have lunch turn about put on the dries and fish the runs i had bypassed on the way down all the way back to where i had left my bike.

Have you tried up and across?  It works better. It is harder to do properly, but there is no comparison in the effectiveness. Doing it well is mostly a matter of practice.

[hopper]

A dead and drowned fly will not swim against the current  but will move about in the current as the water does not flow in a straight line flies will go to the left and right and if a back eddy behind a stone the fly will indeed go upstream

[Traditionalist]

A dead and drowned fly will not swim against the current  but will move about in the current as the water does not flow in a straight line flies will go to the left and right and if a back eddy behind a stone the fly will indeed go upstream

That is widely believed but in fact is not true. A drowned fly in moving water does not move relative to the body of water surrounding it.

[Traditionalist]

i agree with all these things, i'm a dry fly fisher for these reasons, i'd take a wager on catching better if not more upstream, but in my former fishing life i fished small toby lures across and down on the swing, done delicately i'd offer a bigger wager on catching the best fish this way.

Upstream dry fly works better than downstream dry fly, and so does upstream wet fly, for very similar reasons.  You can fish a dry fly downstream, ( often works very well indeed for grayling ) but it is a lot harder to do and there are other problems connected with it.

With regard to tobies and the like, these are most likely taken for fish, and the movement, vibration etc excites the predatory instincts of the fish. You will also often get the larger fish when using spinners etc.  Even there though, they often work better when fished upstream. Especially for seatrout.

[Fishtales]

I fish any which way I can. Up, down, across, down and across, up and across whichever is easiest at the time. I fish each differently and at different speeds to represent how I think the prey items will be swimming. Small prey can only swim at a speed matching their size. The smaller they are the slower their maximum speed. Predators, be they fish or something else, know this and adjust there own strategy, and speed, to take that into account. They respond to movement that is contrary to what should be happening. If something is moving up through the water column, across the current, up into the current or across and up through the water column then it must be alive, dead things don't do that. I don't fish across and down at speed and have the fly skimming across the surface or stripped back at speed. I fish down and across, notice the difference, raising the rod tip as the fly moves across the flow maintaining its distance from me or letting it drift down slightly before raising the rod again to make it swim up and into the current. The movements are subtle, sometimes jerky but not fast. This is what prey do and this is what the predator looks for.