ETHICS OF THE WET FLY
In dealing with this subject, I am conscious that I start with a weight
of opinion against me among the fishermen of chalk streams. I have known
some of them say in a shocked tone, “But that is wet-fly!” as if it were
some high crime and misdemeanour to use a wet fly upon a chalk stream.
To make my peace with such I want to argue this question out, and test
and see what it is about the wet fly which has brought such discredit
upon it among the best sportsmen in the world.
It is axiomatic with many that it is unsuccessful upon chalk streams.
That is not my opinion, but in itself it is not an objection. If it were
unfairly successful it would be another story. The object of fly
fishing, whether wet or dry, is the catching of trout, not anyhow, but
by means refined, clean, delicate, artistic, and sportsmanlike in the
sense that they are fair to the quarry and fair to the brother angler.
There can be no doubt that the dry fly honestly fulfils all these
conditions. Let us see where the wet fly fails.
It is said the wet-fly man’s game is a duffer’s game, which needs
neither knowledge nor any skill beyond enough to cast a long line
downstream or across and down; that it leads to a raking of the water,
often with two or three flies; that it leads to the pricking and scaring
of many fish, to the catching of many undersized trout, and to the undue
disturbance of long stretches of water, to the detriment of the nerves
of the fish and the sport of other anglers. All this I am quite willing
to accept and to eliminate from the legitimate all wet-fly fishing which
could come under this description.
What is left to the wet-fly angler? I venture to say a mighty pretty,
delicate, and delightful art which resembles dry-fly fishing in that the
fly is cast upstream or across, to individual fish, or to places where
it is reasonable to expect that a fish of suitable proportions may be
found, and differs from dry-fly fishing only in the amount of material
used in the dressing of the fly, in the force with which that fly is
cast, and in the extreme subtlety of the indications frequently
attending the taking of the fly by the fish, compared to which there is
a painful obviousness in the taking of the dry fly. Add to this that it
provides means for the circumventing of bulgers and feeders on larvæ,
that it furnishes sport on those numerous occasions when trout are in
position and probably feeding under water without ever breaking the
surface, and generally widens the opportunities of sport for the man who
cannot be always on the spot to seize the best opportunities afforded by
a rise of trout to the floating fly.
Is this method open to any of the objections attending the downstream
raking we concur in condemning? Is it a duffer’s game? Is it easier than
dry-fly fishing? Try and see. Does it lead to the pricking and scaring
of many fish which follow a dragging fly? No. Does it unduly disturb
long stretches of water to the detriment of the brother angler? Why, it
is as easy to spend an afternoon on a hundred yards as it is in the
purest cult of the dry fly.
If the trout are feeding, I for one fail to see why they may
legitimately be fished for if they are taking a small proportion of
their food on the surface, but not if they are taking all, or
practically all, of it underneath. There is a sentence from Francis
Francis quoted with approval by Mr. F. M. Halford, which runs as
follows:
“The judicious and perfect application of dry, wet, and mid-water fly
fishing stamps the finished fly-fisher with the hall-mark of
efficiency.”
Nothing could be more just if one reads it with reference to all
streams, whether chalk streams or otherwise; but to read it
distributively so that only the dry fly may be used on chalk streams,
and only the wet fly on other streams, seems an unnecessary renunciation
of opportunity; while to read it as meaning that only the dry fly may be
used on chalk streams, while wet or dry fly may be legitimately used on
others, carries its own condemnation in logic.
Mr. F. M. Halford, with every desire to be absolutely fair, has, I
think, in Chapter II. of “Dry-Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice,” done
more than any other man to discredit the wet fly on chalk streams, by
the implications, first, that the principle of the dry-fly method—viz.,
the casting of the fly to a feeding fish in position—is not applicable
to the wet-fly method, and, secondly, that on the stillest days, with
the hottest sun and the clearest water, the wet fly is utterly hopeless.
On both these points I respectfully join issue with him.
On all that his book contains on the positive side about the dry fly I
am in practical agreement. But if the reader considers the rods, the
lines, and the flies, that Mr. Halford recommends, he will see that they
are utterly unsuited to wet-fly fishing, and it would not be surprising
that no success attends them when used for wet-fly work. But if I am
right—and I am—in asserting that, given reasonably suitable gear, the
wet fly _may_ be cast upstream in chalk streams to a feeding fish in
position (whether surface feeding or not is, I submit, irrelevant), and
that on its day—and there are many such in the season—it will kill fish
alike in the hottest, brightest, and stillest weather, and on days and
in places and conditions where the dry fly is hopeless, and also in the
roughest of weather, then I may claim that it is an art worthy to stand
beside the art of the dry fly as a supplementary resource of the angler
that is at once fair, sportsmanlike, and capable of adding immensely to
his enjoyment, his sport, and his opportunities for using the highest
skill, not inferior in any sense (except in the matter of the avoidance
of drag) to that exercised by the dry-fly expert.