Hello all, ive just started Fly Fishing after 25 years of coarse fish (Still dabble). Anyway i was given a full days tution for my wedding anniversary at a lake in North Yorks and it had me hooked (Pardon the pun). I finally got to fish after about 6 months and went to a lake in North Yorkshire and caught 2 nice 2lb trout on a wet fly (I believe).

My question is how can you tell if a fly is a wet or dry, and apart from floating line which i have what is the 'intermediate line' for? I know i could get most of these answers from a good tackle shop but im currently out of country at the moment.

Lastly does anyone know of any good rivers/lakes in or around Lisburn northern Ireland

all the best

Cookie

Chuck it in the drink. If it floats - it's a fair bet it's a dry fly.

Hi Cookie, welcome.

Dry flies are unweighted, and typically have hackle or wings. they float.

Wet flies can also be winged but are tied to be fished below the surface.

An intermediate line is a very slow sinking line that allows you to fish a little deeper. then you get medium sinkers, fast sinkers, so on. if you're fishing Irish Loughs a floater should see you fine for most circumstances.

As to places to fish, you're in Ireland, perhaps the best fly fishing in the world!!

Don't go overboard now browniebasher.... Possibly the best in europe, but lets not go daft..

Welcome Cookie.. I have no clue where to fish up north. Do a google search. Also there are heaps of northern anglers on the forum, so im sure one of them will help. We are having an all ireland fly forums meet in lough lene late in september. You will see the thread.. Sign yourself up...

Cheers
JJ

what ive noticed is if i put on a wet fly and cast it out it will float untill it gets wet but when i false cast it dries out and floats again?

A bit simplistic I know but; a traditional dry the wing/hackle will sit at 90 degrees to the hook shank and on a traditional wet the wing/hackle will sit at 45 degrees.

Intermediate lines are slow sinking lines (around 25mm per second) and are used to get wet flies a bit deeper than they would go on a floating line.

Intermediate lines are very useful for beginners as it will allow the flies to get that bit deeper while fishing a short er leader.

Frank

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Frank Williams APGAI

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well the Intermediate will sink so many inches per second and the sinker will do the same

for EG
the Intermediate would sink maby 3 inches per second and the sinker will sink maby 6 or 7 inches per second and the floater floats

Hi', Cookie and welcome to the FFF.
Dry flies are designed to float on the surface of the water, so they are dressed using materials that are either buoyant or which distribute the weight of the fly in such a way that the material in contact with the water does not penetrate the surface film. To aid flotation, a water repellant dressing can be applied to the fly. Typically, hackles for a good floater would be from cock birds, and they would be stiiff and resilient. Wings add weight to a dry fly, may well improve its appearance to the angler and the fish, but are otherwise an encumbrance, unless made from a buoyant or water repellant material, such as siliconised polyyarns.
Wet flies are intended for use under the surface. Hackles are softer, either from farmyard hens or from game birds or some waterfowl-- partridge, woodcock, snipe, waterhen, coot etc.
Both dry and wet flies may be winged or wingless, depending upon which stage in the life of a fly they are meant to represent. The mature insects, aquatic or terrestrial, will have wings; the larvae or pupae will mainly be hackled only; but many wet fly patterns are designed to copy other types of invertebrates or small fish, for example.
Basically, to simplify, if you see fish rising and breaking the surface to take flies, and if you see winged flies on the surface, you fish dry flies. If you see activity under the surface, swirls or bulges which don't quite break the the surface, you fish shallow sunken wet flies, or emergers.
If you see nothing at all, you fish deeper. A floating line will cover your dry fly work and a good deal of your wet fly work. You can find depth using a long leader attached to a floating line, but you reach the stage where it takes too long to get the flies down to the feeding level of the fish -- very bright conditions, and very cold conditions. Then you have the choice of sinking lines that have already been described. A slow intermediate may sink 0.6 to 1.2 inches per second, the more common inter. about 1.25 to 1.75 inches per second and so on through the range of sinking lines.
Knowing the sinking rate of a line permits you to count down the line until you find the depth at which bites are detected, that is the feeding zone. Then, you count down on successive casts, and make your retrieve with the wet flies at the feeding level.
This is just scratching the surface (forgive the pun ), but it might help to get you started. There are books that will help, videos and DVDs. your local library may well have all three. And there are numerous threads on here that will help, using the search facility. Hope that lot helps a little, it's as simple as I can make it, I'm afraid -- there is an awful lot more to this game; but you will have great fun learning. All the best. Terryc.
PS You don't have to wing floating flies. Many, many successful dry flies are hackled only.

I recently asked on another thread but obviously not loudly enough. When I started (a long time ago) I thought dries were tied on up-eyes and wets on down. After a long break it now appears that dries come on either. Was I wrong or have things changed?

Mike

Can't tell you why nor what happened in the past but you can get wets and dries on both types of hooks.

Best fly fishing in the world, come on people, it's Scotland!