Wet Fly Fishing Equipment
by
Eugene Macri

Wet fly fishing has many methods and techniques but the proper equipment is a necessity because the techniques and method used often depend upon specific ratios that many fly fishing experts (whatever that means these days) seem to know nothing about. So here my recommendations for equipment:

Wet Fly Fishing Equipment

You want a fly rod of at least 8.6 feet. Why? Control! You must be able to control the line at all times. Furthermore, you will be using more than one fly on many occasions on droppers so the more control you have the better it is. It's hard to fish wet flies with short rod even if you are well versed in the art.

Rod Action: A medium fast action rod is best for all types of wet fly fishing. The classic wet fly soft rods of yesteryear were mainly for fishing downstream. Modern wet fly fishing encompasses all types of fly fishing and techniques.

Reels: Any good fly reel will suffice. Fly reels have gotten cheaper and the quality has gone up. Do not get too light reel it will screw up your casting. Make sure the reel has enough room for the line and some backing. Also, a decent drag which most reels have today just in case you get a big fish.

Lines: I like weighted forwards but double tapers will do just fine and a little known secret: level lines work fine for a lot wet fly fishing and are cheap.

Leaders: I do not like knotted leaders. That doesn't mean you'll have no knots in the leader,--I just don't like hand made leaders of sections because the knots cause tangles and also can cause drag and catch every little piece of stream debris. You'll need many adaptations over time with leaders for wet fly fishing but here's a simple way to start: buy 7.6 feet standard leaders tapered to 3x. Now add 12 inches of a shock tippet of 3x. Now add your tippet around 15 to 18 inches of 4x. You can add a dropper where you tied on your tippet to the shock tippet. This is a pretty good standard leader for fishing a single fly and or with one dropper. If you don't add a dropper you can length the tippet to get deeper. You can also add shot where necessary.

Split Shot: Don't leave home without it. A necessary evil to get the fly down and catch more trout.

Now this is just a standard rig for wet fly fishing. You can add sinking lines, and all types of rigs but this will get you started.