Wet Fly Fishing and Spinning

Tinytony

Hi,

Just have a couple of questions on the above:

Obviously it varies from river to river but just wondering if any of you have had any success yet this year using a wet fly? It usually works pretty well on the river I fish during the summer but I am wondering is it still a bit early for it this year? I have been down along the river a couple of times this year and there doesn't seem to much rising to flies yet. I noticed quite large flies landing on the river last week but there didn't seem to be much rise to them (and this was late in the evening so I would have been expecting a bit more action).

Do any of you fish for trout regularly with a spinner?

Just started using one this year as I got impatient waiting for the weather to improve for the wet fly fishing. I've been reading a lot of different reports on the best methods to fish with a spinner. Most people locally seem to fish straight across the runs with the spinner, whereas I have read online that ideally you should be casting upstream and reeling back in directly downstream or at least down and across.

Any thoughts on this? At the moment I'm using a blue and silver 1 mepps.

premiercad

Hi Tony,

I've been out a few times wit the wet fly already this year with some success. A few decent trout and dozens of smolt (all released)! Conditions generally are excellent for wet fly at the moment as its reasonably mild and the water is clear and low. However I still think its a bit early for fly fishing in general. I find the end of April will really pick up regarding fly activity although it varies from place to place. The late evening hatch you saw was probably a large dark olive hatch but evening hatches with trout actually rising are very rare this month as its still cold nd frosty at night.

As for the spinning your on the right track with the silver mepps. I would keep the size reasonable big though. I would appeal to anyone spinning at this time of year try and be carefull with the young fish in the river as ive seen tiny fish impaled on huge treble hooks lately with no chance of survival!

I used to spin upstream all the time as it gets the bait right down to the river bed where the fish are lying. Be prepared to lose a few baits to weeds but catch bigger fish!

Tinytony

premiercad wrote: »

Hi Tony,

I've been out a few times wit the wet fly already this year with some success. A few decent trout and dozens of smolt (all released)! Conditions generally are excellent for wet fly at the moment as its reasonably mild and the water is clear and low. However I still think its a bit early for fly fishing in general. I find the end of April will really pick up regarding fly activity although it varies from place to place. The late evening hatch you saw was probably a large dark olive hatch but evening hatches with trout actually rising are very rare this month as its still cold nd frosty at night.

As for the spinning your on the right track with the silver mepps. I would keep the size reasonable big though. I would appeal to anyone spinning at this time of year try and be carefull with the young fish in the river as ive seen tiny fish impaled on huge treble hooks lately with no chance of survival!

I used to spin upstream all the time as it gets the bait right down to the river bed where the fish are lying. Be prepared to lose a few baits to weeds but catch bigger fish!

Cheers for the reply. I've a caught a couple of small trout on the spinner (all released). The river never really turns up anything much bigger than 1lb so would I be wasting my time fishing anything bigger than a Size 1 mepps?

I was in the fishing shop at lunch time and the guy reccomended the Flying C to me. I bought a couple of them but forgot to ask how to fish them, I assume just the same method as a regular spinner? They look a bit big to me to be honest.

I think I'll wait till the end of this month to rig up the wet flies. By wet fly I mean with a bubble float and 2 or 3 flies tied off further up the line. Would you fish in the same way?