Two of the questions beginning fly fishers most frequently ask are, "How do dry flies, wet flies, nymphs and streamers differ?" And "How should each be fished?

First of all, a "dry fly" is an artificial fly designed to be fished on the water surface. They are traditionally tied on light wire hooks with stiff water repellant hackle and tail. When properly constructed they alight and float upright with only the tips of the hackle and tail dimpling the water. The fly itself should ride high and dry. Thus the name, dry fly.

So called "parachute" and "no-hackle" flies are not true dry flies. They ride in the surface film, not on it.

Dry fly fishing is by far the easiest way of fly fishing for trout. Less knowledge of fish habits and stream structure is necessary to successfully fish dries.

The fisher can watch his fly on the water and see it taken. Because dry flies are almost always fished with a free float downstream towards the angler and fish face the current watching for drifting insects, the fly is taken as the fish is going away, so setting the hook is relatively easy.

Also after taking a surface fly, trout tend to return to the comparative safety of deeper water before examining what they took to determine if it is edible, so the fisher has a few seconds, to tighten line and set the hook.

Fly fishing has a long and interesting history reaching back at least two thousand years. Dry fly fishing as we know it however, is probably less than two hundred years old.

In 1851, an English writer, one George Pulman gave us as succinct a description of dry fly fishing as any one has since. He said, "Let a dry fly be substituted for the wet one, the line switched a few times through the air to throw off super abundant moisture, a judicious cast made just above the rising fish, and the fly allowed to float towards and over them, the chances are ten to one it will be seized as readily as the living insect".

This is exactly what we do today. Casts must be delicate so a splashing line doesn't alarm the trout. The fly must be placed above and allowed to float naturally over the fish. Drag from the line or leader that moves the fly at a different speed than the current will spook a trout.

Dry flies are usually prepared for fishing by dipping or spraying with a water proofing solution. This can be purchased or it can be made by dissolving parafin in a small bottle of gasoline.

A fish's saliva is a wetting agent so after each time a trout takes the fly, it should be rinsed, shaken dry and treated with flotant again.

"Wet flies" are those made to be fished submerged. They represent drowned insects, flies that swim under water to deposit eggs, or that have hatched, fully winged, under water and are rising to become airborne.

If a wet fly has wings they are usually tied undivided and "down wing" style. They maybe tied with or without a tail. Generally, soft webby hackle is used which is tied to slope rearward.

Wet flies designed primarily for lake fishing may have divided wings to help give action. However, divided wings can make a fly spin in a current and twist a leader.

They are fished in a variety of ways. They may be allowed to tumble down stream or retrieved against the current. Casting upstream to allow more time for them to sink and then fishing out the cast downstream is popular. Across stream casts accomplish about the same thing. Many anglers keep varying their retrieves until they find one that takes fish.

"Streamers" are elongated wet flies, usually made to imitate minnows. They can have feather or hair wings or a combination of both. A "bucktail" streamer is one with all hair wings.

Many large stone flies swim under water to deposit their eggs. Streamers with squirrel tail or barred rock wings imitate these nicely.

Streamers and wet flies are fished similarly. A retrieve with short pulls and pauses to imitate the darting motion of a minnow is frequently effective. Streamers are a traditional early season lure and are used any time when streams are high or roily such as after a rain.

Both wet flies and streamers can be weighted by a few turns of lead wire under the body when constructed. Quite often streamers are weighted under the head in the same way. Weighting a streamer head makes it dip between pulls like an injured minnow.

Water bred flies spend most of their life under water as nymphs or larvae. Many of them live a year or more in this stage and only a few hours as adults.

Trout streams from early spring to late fall are teeming with these drifting, swimming, crawling, and emerging organisms. Fish personnel tell us they make up as much as ninety percent of a stream trout's diet.

To most fly fishers, all immature aquatic insects and small crustaceans like fresh water shrimp and sow bugs are "nymphs" so this has become the name for imitations.

Although most nymph patterns are tied with coverts or stubby wings, many are merely simple hackle flies. Weighted flies tend to ride hook up so if you use weighted nymphs, the plain hackle type will look more natural in the water.

Because so many anglers fished floating flies before trying nymphs, dry fly tactics are widely used with nymphs. These dead drift presentations are effective but strikes are hard to detect.

There are so many different kinds of nymphs and larvae in the average trout stream and their habits are so diverse that there probably isn't any wrong way to fish a nymph fly. Any time its in the water it's working for you. Knowledge of the underwater life in the streams you fish is bound to be helpful, however.

Some of the largest trout this writer has taken on nymphs, struck as the line was being lifted to cast again.