----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave LaCourse"
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.fishing.fly
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 7:43 PM
Subject: old-time floatant(?)


On 26 Jul 2006 15:18:47 -0700, "Mark67" wrote:

I imagine that there were a number of well known recipes.
Anybody know what was in them?

I imagine someone a long time ago used paraffin or bees wax to help
float a dry, and maybe even whale oil or its by-products.

I believe that wet flies were more in favor than dries back in the
19th century, so a floatant wouldn't be necessary. You seldom see
someone using a wet fly nowadays, but when I was a kid, they were very
popular, and no, I'm not *that* old. I still use them and fish them
like a nymph.

Dave



I'm surprised to hear many don't still use Wets....it represents a bug of
whatever sort hatching into the open water. A stage which can be fished
exclusively very successfully. You may have heard that a nymph can be a
good fly to use prior to a big evening hatch (or any time of the day really)
of emerging duns. The wet fly represents the first step of their emergence
and can also be very effective at this time.

And...because the nymphs begin to move around just before emergence, fishing
the wet like a nymph can be very productive also as they begin to bulge and
shed their old existence.

Tom was pleasantly surprised one year when I fished his March Brown Emerger
as a nymph with much success. Worked with the same concept really, the fish
usually took the fly on the swing off of the bottom.

The last note about wets is it is a great fly to learn fly fishing on. Of
course for those of use fortunate to be around water with productive
hatches, but it pretty simple to chuck the fly across the water, and
upstream, working the swing.

I've heard from some that this is very productive with soft hackles also.

Mike