Time to try something different

In the past 12 months, I've pretty much been exclusively nymphing with the various euro-techniques whenever I've gone out fishing. Considering where I was a year ago and where I am now, it's a night and day difference. Having done so much of the same basic thing over and over again for so long, I decided I finally have that down to a reasonable degree and perhaps I needed to change it up a little.

I'd been giving this a lot of consideration over the winter and got to tying up various wet flies, both winged and soft-hackled, so I'd be ready to try it out this spring. Well, today was the day and I really felt out of my element. I had to leave all the nymphs in the truck so I would not be tempted if I wasn't rewarded in short order.

The Farmington river was the venue today. I reasoned I might be able to get a bunch of trout in the Central Riffle, since many people pass over it and the water type there is perfect for wets. As it turned out, I only had one brief tug on the end of my line there. Needless to say, I was disappointed.

So I bagged that and went up to the Church Hole area. My intent was to fish the riffles above the pool. A couple more brief tugs under the bridge. I was thinking "I don't know what the fuss is about, these wet flies suck". I kept working upstream into a different riffly section. Finally, things began to turn around and I had like 5 hookups in short order. I mean like a fish every third or fourth cast. I went from disdainful skeptic to believer in about 15 minutes.

This is the first brown that came to the net. Yeah, it's a stocker, but it is a legit first fish on a wet:


This one was a pleasant surprise, a nice 9 inch brookie:


Encouraged, I kept working at it, fishing in spots I would normally pass up if I were nymphing, especially euro-nymphing. I waded up to a shallow flat and noticed a few fish rising. Perfect wet fly opportunity, right? Threw it in there a bunch of times using various presentation techniques, but was not able to interest the trout. Finally, as I was pondering my next move, something heavy hit. I got excited when the rod was bent over fairly sharply. Could be a sweet holdover I thought.

I did land the fish and it was a good sized trout, but it was perhaps one of the ugliest stockers I've ever caught! The first thing I noticed were the almost complete lack of spots. This thing resembles a giant golden shiner I thought!


Then I notice the tail and was thoroughly bummed:

It looked like it had seen a few battles, to say the least. I hate to be negative on a trout, but this one just did not leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy.

All said and done, I learned a bunch today and realize this is only the beginning of my learning curve with the wets.