Do we really need wings.

[Traditionalist]

They respond to movement that is contrary to what should be happening.

Sometimes, and with dead drifting insects most often not.  Any movement of dead drifting insects will put most fish off and especially larger fish.  If it is larger prey that struggles and moves a lot like grasshoppers or similar, the movement will often attract the larger fish.  It just doesn't work very well at all with small imitative artificials.

Winged flies can not swim underwater. If they move too much they will invariably be ignored or refused and in a lot of cases fish will shy away from them. This is the main reason why down and across with winged wet flies is a poor method. The majority of fish that see the flies wont take them.

It is exactly the same as drag on a dead drifting dry fly. It will put fish off.

This is why upstream wet fly fishing with small imitative patterns is more effective than downstream fishing with such patterns.

[Traditionalist]

good question, i used to fish a 4g toby, which is tiny, on a tippet looped to 6lb mono, delicate stuff, you can put it anywhere and swim/drift it to the fish, on rivers i would cast upstream where i had to and did it a lot but never found it a successful thing to do, the zone was letting the lure carry down in the current till it was in front of the fish then lock the line about 45 degrees across and raise the rod tip just enough to get it swimming, it would then sweep round, 90% of takes were half way through this sweep, trout, sea trout, and salmon react in the same way to this, sea trout were the most predictable just cos there would be loads in the one spot,
what you do from the moment the lure enters the water i would say is as skilled, and strangely similar in an opposite sort of way to achieving a drag free drift with a dry fly, you have to target the fish in much the same way and work the lure into quite precise places, its also very visual in rivers in that you see a flash as the fish turns to position itself before taking,
i find an upstream dry, which is invariably a cross stream cast with a mend, more effective when fish are rising, and often the fly cast is the less complex one.

That is basically a so called "induced take" which causes the fish to grab the prey instinctively. It works very well if you are precise enough. It is not the same thing as simply fishing down and across on a taut line.

[Malcolm]

Thinking through all my really big brownies: only one has taken a dry fly and that was a huge G&H sedge - I posted a picture of that fish earlier this year.

Nearly all the others both sea run, and freshwater brownies have taken huge flies swinging across the river - very often speeded up with a big downstream mend. For the big trout casting directly across with a huge downstream mend seems to trigger the aggressive reactions as they chase the fly downstream before hitting it as it starts to swing across the stream.

[Traditionalist]

Thinking through all my really big brownies: only one has taken a dry fly and that was a huge G&H sedge - I posted a picture of that fish earlier this year.

Nearly all the others both sea run, and freshwater brownies have taken huge flies swinging across the river - very often speeded up with a big downstream mend. For the big trout casting directly across with a huge downstream mend seems to trigger the aggressive reactions as they chase the fly downstream before hitting it as it starts to swing across the stream.

Indeed, that often works very well indeed, but it wont work very often with a small winged wet fly.

[Traditionalist]

i think there are times, fishing the Clyde earlier this season drift after drift was ignored and pulling in at the end of the drift the fly sunk on the move and was hit every time, the fly was a 14 dhe, something working there.

Fish do all sorts of things under all sorts of circumstances. Practically anything will catch a fish at some time or other.  For consistent success you need to tailor your methods to the normal behaviour of the fish, and not to what they might do sometimes. Even less so when you know perfectly well that quite a few things are not normal behaviour at all.

If you consistently drag a wet size 14 DHE upstream you will eventually get a fish on it, but it wont happen very often, and you will get mostly small fish.

How people fish is  a matter of indifference to me unless they have found a method or tactic which works consistently, and then I am all ears. The topic here was whether one needs wings on artificial flies. One does not, but a lot of flies work better with wings when they are dressed and fished appropriately.

If people want to do something else, that's fine with me.

[Fishtales]

All living things move, whether it is a swimming action or just a wriggling in its death throws, this is what attracts the predator in the first place. They will take dead unmoving flies but I think that is because they have taken that many drowned live ones they are taking a recognised food item. There are also two types of fish. The forager that swims actively about a stretch of river or pool and the ambusher who sits and waits for the food to come to him. Each uses a different strategy when looking for food items but they are both reacting to movement whether a drowning fly, with wings or an underwater creature that is supposed to be there. The static fish also go for faster moving food items than the forager who will take slower and more sedentary food items. The main thing is they have to come in contact with the prey item first before they can eat it. Whether fishing up, down, across, wet or dry it has to come within their capture area which is based on speed of flow, reaction time of the fish and the size of food item. Any item that is within that capture area will be investigated or eaten if the energy loss is less than the energy gained. Any un-natural movement will stop the process. This could be the item moving to fast for its size in the wrong direction to the flow. A winged fly which is still living, will be attempting to reach the surface. Its struggles will make it rise in the water column at a speed determined by its size, strength and flow rate. A wet, winged fly fished parallel to the flow and allowed to rise slowly in the water column will represent that. It will also represent the rising of a nymph to the surface to hatch so two for the price of one

I don't just chuck it and chance it, I use a tactic that I have confidence in and that works. If someone thinks that wet fly fishing is just throwing out the line, holding it tight and following the line and flies round in the current or stripping them back at a high rate of knots then they aren't doing it right.

[Malcolm]

One of the things that has hapened over the past years is that furrin people put interesting names to things (especially casts and techniques) that have been done by people here for many years. So while we pragmatic Scots call the technique "across and down" with most of the takes coming just as the fly starts to swing the Americans found this hugely successful technique and gave it a proper name: the Leisenring Lift - sounds much better and more sophisticated now!

[Robbie]

I quite a few winged wets in my boxes, partly because I do catch fish with them and partly because I like to look of them and enjoy tying them (however there is plenty room for improvement).

Admittedly I have never fished wet fly on moving water, which is something I may have to remedy next season.

Having read through this (excellent) thread, it struck me that their may be a risk of assuming that the wings we tie on our wet flies are meant to imitate the wings of a natural, could be wrong but I did not think this was the case for all flies. I have never seen many silver bodied insects with bright red go faster strips and metallic green wings.

[Traditionalist]

It wasn't a question Alan :wink: A 4g Toby probably isn't the best lure for upstream spinning...



I have seen this myself many times fishing small rivers down in Devon. A team of two size 14 spiders fished downstream and dragging (not dragging hard but there is tension on the fly line) out fishing the same flies fished upstream. Before anyone asks yes I can fish upstream wet :roll: Why it should work I don't know, logic says it shouldn't but it does. Not only that but I could recognise the conditions it would work in (early season, steady but not prolific hatches of olives) so in those conditions on those waters it was a better method than upstream.


Andy

I think such flies are taken for hatching nymphs. It doesn't work as well everywhere but does well on some streams. Dragging flies do sometimes work of course, but small (imitative) winged wets are usually very poor, and as you quite rightly say it's just not logical to use them for this purpose.

[Fishtales]

I now seldom fish anything larger than a #12. Having fished everything from small fast flowing highland streams to the Clyde, Spey and Tay with winged wets and fishing them in all directions, at all speeds and at all depths and consistently catching fish I see no reason to doubt there ability to catch fish. I have said already as soon as I see duns on the water on a loch I know the winged Iron Blue will start taking fish, when it loses the wing it stops taking until I replace it with a winged one. At the same time I catch fish on both the nymph and dry so they can't be taking it for any of those. I can only assume it is being taken for a drowning adult.