Completely new at this, learning on a borrowed fly rig (and have no idea what the wt of the line is), and only knowing what I've seen on TV about fly-fishing, I've always thought of a "fly" as a lure that just stays on the top of the water when it lands and during the retrieve. But am I correct in that fly-fishing can include below surface flies, sinking flies, etc.? And I'm using the term "Fly" as anything being used at the end of the fly line.
After several casts my fly would start to sink and I would pull it in, dry it off and cast again.
Can you explain the various methods?
Also, I started to learn how to roll-cast (if that's the right term), to hit different spots without having to bring all the line in and re-cast. But if the "fly" is below surface or even near the bottom, will it still retrieve as easily, allowing a roll-cast? That is, if flies are even meant to be used sub-surface.
So my question is on explaining the dry-fly, wet-fly, surface and below surface (floating, suspended, sinking, etc.) fly-fishing.
PS to George (and others), thank you so much for initiating this and taking the time to get this going! Especially for new-be's like me that discovered the thrill of fly-fishing, and hopefully enticing others to try it and realize it's not just something done in streams for trout!
Keith, I'll see if I can get those questions answered for you. Please keep in mind that these are just my opinions and not set in stone facts.
Most of the "flies" that people think of when they hear fly fishing are "dries", in other words, they are meant to be fished on the surface of the water. Most of the smaller dry flies achieve floatation by being very light weight and having a lot of surface area to allow them to be supported by the surface tension of the water. If the material in a dry fly soaks up water, it can become heavy enough to break the surface tension and sink. This is not always a bad thing. Dry flies often are designed to mimic small flying insects that have landed on the water (e.g. mayflies, dragonflies, and even mosquitoes). In the course of insect events, it isn't at all unlikely that some of them will sink into the water column. If you fish with the extra purist folk, it is apparently considered "bad sport" to fish a dry fly underwater. Obviously, those folks just don't want to catch fish badly enough.
Personally, I also count frogs, mice, and hoppers as dry flies, but I've always been a little odd.
As for getting a dry fly to float again, you can add some sort of "flotant" product to make it shed water better, dry it in a specially designed powder, or just false cast it a few times to let the air dry it.
Wet flies, some of which are also called streamers, are designed for use under water. Nymphs, Clouser minnows, and woolly buggers are commonly used examples of wet flies.
Wet flies are sometimes weighted when tied, however some are more neutrally buoyant. If you want to get a wet fly down deep (6 feet or more) in a reasonable amount of time, you will usually need a sinking fly line of some type. You can fish almost as deep with a sinking fly line as you can with conventional fishing gear, but it requires a bit more patience.
It's usually accepted to refer to anything lashed onto the end of a tippet as a fly.
The technique used to fish any of these artificials is totally dependent on what kind of fish you want to catch and where in the water column they are located. You'll hear the tired old cliche "match the hatch" thrown around a lot in fly fishing. It's tired and old because it's true. "Match the hatch" usually refers to selecting a fly that looks most like what your target fish are eating. I also think of it meaning you need to match the behavior of the bait that you are trying to mimic.
For example, if the largemouth bass on your pond are smacking dragonflies on the surface, not only do you want to find a fly that is similar in size and color to the dragonflies they are eating, you also want to land it on the water and twitch it about to closely match how the live bait is acting.
If you can't tell what kind of bait they're chasing, sometimes using a wet fly as a "search" lure can work similar to using a RattLtrap or a spinnerbait to figure out where the fish are and what they're taking.
I also like to mimic wounded prey, such as a shad or a frog. Sometimes the fish want to strike at something that's making a lot of noise and sometimes they prefer to stalk something that is barely making any disturbance at all. You know how moody fish can be.
One thing that someone else told me early on about fly presentation has really helped on my hook-setting: don't use the rodtip to impart a lot of action to the way you're presenting the fly. Instead, use the way you strip the line in to put the motion in your presentation. Keep the rodtip pointed at where your fly line meets the water. This keeps slack out of your line. The tighter the connection is between your stripping hand and the hook point, the better chance you'll have of getting that good hook set.
With regard to roll casting wet flies, that is certainly a viable way to cast them, but, depending on how deep they are when you begin the roll cast, you might have to roll cast once to bring them to the surface, and then once more to actually place the fly where you want it to end up.
Please let me know if that answered all your questions and feel free to ask for clarification. Hopefully, if I muddied the water too badly, someone else can jump in here and help us both.
