Harvey Clarke has a nice piece in today’s New Zealand Herald on wee wets.
” I spent three hours on the Tongariro River Hydro Pool one evening this week and landed nine trout. One was an excellent fresh-run rainbow hen, three were recovering spawners in pretty good nick and five were the fish I was targeting – fat juveniles up to 1.2kg that fight like angry little bulls on light tackle. All told, I got more than 20 hits.
Three other anglers visited the pool in that time. They were using traditional nymph and wetline techniques but caught nothing – and they were watching me closely.
So what was my secret, what was I using? Nymphs? No. Woolly Buggers? No. Must have been glo-bugs then? No. Well, what else is left – worms? No.
I was using what I consider the most deadly of all flies for evening river fishing, flies that were brought here 140 years ago by the first anglers arriving from England, flies long overlooked since the explosion in nymph fishing relegated most other techniques to the sideline.
I was using the long-forgotten fly: the wonderful wee wet….(more at link)”
I have been a fan of wee wets for over 50 years. I was first taught to fly fish by a friend of my Father, and we used dry or wee wet flies exclusively. Nymphing was yet to be ‘imported’.
Now I often see anglers using a dry with a nymph hanging off the bend of it’s hook. Basically they are using the dry as an indicator that might get bitten. But using a wee wet under the dry is actually covering two bases, the dry and a normal imitative emerged insect, and the wee wet as the emerging insect. As Harvey explains it can be a lethal combination, especially in the evening.

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