More soft hackle talk

[BCOY 0]

i recently began to try to experiment with fishing flies with more movement, and with great success. I am convinced it is one of the most and often the most essential quality of any pattern. This led me to thinking about soft hackles, which I have always ignored largely for some reason, and really don't know much about. Anyway, I came up with some questions you guys might help me with.

 

- what are some of the best ways to fish them

- ever put of bead head on, or any weight when you fish them?

- What are your preferred types of water for fishing them?

- How do they produce on browns? I've always been hesetant to use much of anything except big narly streamers for them

 

[Redwings1 0]

First off, welcome to the forum.

 

-They fish well in still water for gills, and of course either dead-drifted or fished with a small twitch in streams.

 

-I do have some in the box with a BH, but you have to know what the BH will do to the action of the fly in the water. Often it does not make sense and you are better off pegging a small split 18" up your line.

 

-My ideal situation is to twitch them through the head of a pool following a nice long riffle section. Enough tasty food items get dislodged in the riffles to usually attract plenty of fish and the heads of those pools have traditionally been very productive with soft hackles for me.

 

-I live in Ohio and the only trout stream close enough to worry about is all browns, and soft hackles out fish nearly every other method/fly. That being said, to target the pigs yuo are better off sacrificing numbers and turning to a nice meaty streamer.

[BCOY 0]

Thanks, tying some up ASAP

[Batman 0]

I tie the hackle in first, then put the bead on and finish the fly from there. they look good and I have caught

a few fish with them, drifting below an indicator. B

[Batman 0]

Oh, I forgot to add that the bead is turned around backwards so the hackle stays flared real well

B

[Iowaflyguy 0]

Thanks for the idea Batman. I think I will try a few that way tonight.

 

Tom

[Calvin 0]

The trout out here on the Missouri River love the soft hackles. Last weekend a beadhead softhackle caddis pupae was the trick and caught all of my fish, which were all browns.

[quietman41 0]

Up here in Michigan the orange and pat sz? (I donot remember today) and the peacock and herl sz18 rule the day on trout streams fished down and across is the surface film. The BH sounds like it would put it a little deeper which should be a killer. I will have to try it.

[quietman41 0]

Oops,

 

I have tired soft hackle in all the colors, I just been more sucessful with those two.. All the colors do work on pan fish.

[robow7 0]

One of my go to flies for so many species, is a black bead head fly with black dubbed body and darker soft hackle from 1. Hen 2. Partridge 3. starling if tying small. So many times they'll hit this when they won't touch a dry fly, I feel it is because they feel less comfortable near the surface and therefore more agressive when the meal is deeper in the water column. Just my take anyway.

[Spanky 0]

Just before Memorial Day Soft hackles and BH Buggers saved the day on a trip to Western NC. Lots of rain had me worried about water clarity. The first fish I caught were on a orange body soft hackle and later caught some on a weighted woven body(green/yellow and rust/yellow)soft hackle caddis pupae. We did not catch great numbers but did get some quality fish. The larger fish were caught on BH buggers. We caught mostly browns and rainbows but I did get lucky and get 2 brookies. One of the brooks went 20" and 3 lbs according to my de-liar scale. I also have great luck with soft hackles on panfish. Dave Hughes book is a great reference for patterns and methods.

 

Spanky

[appalachian angler (tn.) 0]

Ah...the soft hackle. Yes I wouldn't hit the trout stream without them! Simple to tie, cheap on materials, and downright killer in the water. One thing I will highly recomend though, buy the whole skin (ie. partrige, starling, grouse) as opposed to a bag of feathers. The bags are full of mostly fluff and take forever to cull out. A good partrige skin will cost you 20-25$ but will yield hundreds of usable feathers. Another option is to buy hen necks or saddles. Either will do and the finer textured barbs will need 2/1 wraps over game bird feathers. You can even use chinese or indian rooster capes (the necks are too stiff).

 

I fish them mostly with a down and across the current swing and vary the strip/twitch though the slower spots like seems. I will high stick them into deeper pools and runs when fishing at the head. There are so many subtle thing you can do with these style of flies that can and will produce strikes..sometimes very violent and abrupt! The best thing you can do when fishing softies is to mend often and keep you slack taken up! You will find that your best hook-ups are when your tip is just barely in the water and pionted directly at the fish striking at that moment.

 

Tight lines!!!

 

AA

[Chase Creek 0]

Love soft hackles. I tie the traditional (partridge & ____, etc.) and bead heads. Sometimes hackle in front of bead, sometimes in back.

Try wire bodies, too. Really like double hackle softies, one hackle at front, one at rear.

As you can see, there are endless variations. But keep the hackle sparse, one or two turns.

They do so well on Brookies I'm beginning to feel guilty. But not that guilty.

[Guest]

I second the recommendation for the Dave Hughes book, I have Trout Flies which has decent coverage of wet fly patterns as well as a great step by step on tying a partridge & yellow, this is a great book for the all around trout fisherman. But, if your really into soft hackles Wet Flies is the book for you. It has history and evolution of wet flies, fishing methods, and many more patterns than Trout Flies has. You'll learn everything you need to know to tie and fish wet flies effectively from this book.

Good Luck, Eric