River Fishing for Brown Trout.

Many of the rivers in Ireland and Scotland are quite small and would be refered to as "freestone" by those in the US. This usually means that they hold a small head of quite small brown trout. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule and some rivers can produce excellent numbers of reasonable sized brown trout. The rivers which flow into Lough Neagh also get a run of large brown trout which are locally called dollaghan. These fish behave almost exactly like sea trout except that they run to a freshwater lough instead of the sea. You can find out a little more about them on my salmon and dollaghan page.

The traditional method of fishing is the down and accross technique with a team of wet flies and, I must confess, this is the method with which I relate best as lough fishing is where my main interest lies. River fishing is something which I do only rarely and, therefore, I can't claim to be an expert. However it is an area of fishing where the wet fly can perform very well indeed and so I thought to give it at least a little coverage on my web page.

The photo above was taken in the Wicklow Hills and the chap fishing had a bag full of small fish which he had caught for his lunch. He was fishing a traditional cast of wet flies in the usual across and down manner using a very soft bamboo rod. While this isn't a method likely to be very popular with more forward thinking anglers it is certainly one which works. The only thing that many dry fly anglers can tell you about wet fly fishing is that you need a very soft rod. This is not true. Yes, there has been a tradition of using a soft rod for wet fly fishing and a softish rod can help avoid tangles in the droppers but I use a Sage for some of my wet fly fishing and it is not usually considered a soft rod. My advice to anyone wanting to try wet fly fishing is to use your normal rod, hopefully it will be one which suits the river to some extent and will be of a reasonable length. Should you use a very short rod for much of your fishing then try and find a rod of 9 feet length, or even more if you like. The wet fly rod is more of a fishing tool rather than a casting tool and so it is not necessary to spend a fortune on the most high tech rod you can buy.

Here in Ireland and on the waters I fish in Scotland it is common to use a rod rated for a 7 weight line. While this may sound somewhat excessive for small brown trout you must also take the weather conditions into consideration, there is no way you will get much fun casting a 4 weight into a gale.

Apart from the rod most of the comments on my lough fishing page concerning gear also apply here, in our temperate climate sensible clothing and footwear are more important than fishing rods or reels and it is worth investing in clothing which suits you and the weather conditions.

After all that it is just a case of throwing the team of flies across the river at about 45 degrees and waiting for them to swing around. Clearly it is sensible to mend the line thereby avoiding drag. Often if the flies start to move across the stream too quickly they will rise to the surface and skid across the river in a most distracting way. This is something which is best avoided, unless of course it is the tactic for which the fish are falling on that particular day.

I don't believe that there is much more which can be said about wet fly fishing in rivers. I am sure it is possible to write books and discuss tactics and the like but the best way to learn is to experiment yourself. This is not an area in which I am expert and so there it's best if I don't rant on any more on the subject except to say that, like the lough fishing, the more you do it the better you will get. If you only try wet fly fishing for one day then it is most unlikely you will have an enjoyable or successful experience, instead try it in tandem with your main method of fishing for a whole season. The wet fly fishing will not require much more in the way of bits and pieces and you can probably use the same rod and reel so it might provide an interesting experiment.

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