The early days of fly fishing in North America were dominated by the use of wet flies. At first these wet flies, both soft hackled and winged, consisted mostly of patterns borrowed from Britain, but is wasn’t long before New World creativity began adding homegrown patterns to the list of wet flies, flies like the Paramachene Belle, the Dark Montreal and the McGinty. Most of these new patterns tended to be winged, and many of them resembled little jewels because they incorporated bright colours and sparkle in their construction. Hence the term fancy wet flies.
Some have speculated that the explosion of new fancy wet fly patterns in North America was related to the desire of New World fly anglers to distinguish themselves from their Old World counterparts. Others have suggested that it was because early trout fishing in North America involved brook trout, as compared to brown trout, and that the brook trout were especially attracted to fancy wet flies. Probably it was a combination of both of these reasons, but the bottom line was that for a hundred years, from about 1850 to 1950, the fancy wet fly ruled supreme. The dominance of the fancy wet fly is well documented in Ray Bergman’s marvelous book Trout, published in 1938. Of the 600 flies illustrated in Bergman’s book, 440 of them are wet flies and most of those are fancy wet flies with wings
The seeds of the end of the rule of the fancy wet fly were planted late in the 1800’s with the development of the dry fly in Britain and its migration to North America. However, the wet fly continued to dominate until the 1950’s when Americans Vince Marinaro in his book A Modern Dry Fly Code, and Ernest Schweibert in his book Matching the Hatch, recommended flies that more closely imitated the various stages of aquatic insects. Fancy wet flies continued to hang on until the 1990’s but the growing popularity of the imitation approach to fly selection gradually won out to the point that they have now practically disappeared from fly shops and mail order catalogues.
Lately, however, new interest has been shown in the old fancy wet fly patterns. Nostalgia for the beauty of fancy wet fly undoubtedly has something to do with it, but the new interest is also being sparked by the realization that fancy wet fly patterns were effective, and nothing has changed in that regard. Some of the fancy wet flies actually do resemble insects to some degree, but the effectiveness of most is likely related to their functioning as attractor patterns. The theory behind attractors is that if you get the attention of the fish through the use of bright colours and sparkle, they’ll hit an attractor pattern out of aggression or on the chance that it might be something edible.
On a recent visit to a southern Ontario trout stream brookies and rainbows alike were hammering my White Miller flies. Casting them downstream near the shore and allowing them to swing with the current into likely holding water produced some savage takes. I was quickly convinced that fancy wet flies are more than just attractive gems from our fly fishing past. They catch fish too.
White Miller
Hook: Mustad 3906 or equivalent, sizes 12 to 6
Thread: white for the body, black for the head, size 6/0
Tag: flat gold mylar tinsel
Tail: two red turkey quill segments
Body: white floss
Rib: flat gold mylar tinsel, size #14
Wings: white turkey quill segments
Hackle: white
Blockhouse
Hook: Mustad 3906 or equivalent, sizes 12 to 6
Thread: red for the body, black for the head, size 6/0
Tag: flat gold mylar tinsel
Body: yellow floss
Rib: flat gold mylar tinsel, size #14
Wings: red turkey quill segments
Hackle: red
Dan is a fly fishing and outdoors writer who has been writing about the outdoors since 1983 when he first had an article published in Ontario OUT OF DOORS magazine. He was the magazine’s fly fishing editor from 1998 through 2015. Dan enjoys fly fishing in all its dimensions, from the heritage, history and literature of the sport, to fishing for trout and alternate species. He has been an adjunct lecturer in outdoor recreation at the University of Waterloo. In 2008, Dan won the Greg Clark Award for outstanding contributions to the arts of fly fishing at the Canadian Fly Fishing Symposium. He has been a popular guest speaker at fly clubs across the province, at the Canadian Fly Fishing Forum and at the Grand Opportunities Fly Fishing Forum and has been a fly tying instructor at the Canadian Fly Tying Symposium. Dan retired in 2019 as the Director of Engineering and Planning Services for the Township of Woolwich. Dan has also been a long time member of the KW Fly Fishers and in 2020 he became the President of the Club. Dan lives in Rockwood with his wife Jan, cats Tiger and Finnegan, and golden retriever Mitchell.