Soft Hackle Flies

[redietz 0]

 

Great comments so far, and I'll add this book by Mike Harding to the list:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Guide-North-Country-Flies-Step/dp/1845134893

 

TC

Really dont like that book, sorry. ;-)

 

But will recommend http://www.anglebooks.com/the-north-country-fly-yorkshire-s-soft-hackle-tradition-by-robert-l-smith.html

The best book since T. E. Pritt....

 

H

 

Perhaps since Edmonds&Lee. I've long referred to Pritt as the Old Testament and E&L as the New.

 

The Smith book is a great one, though.

[prairiedrifter 0]

FKROW,

That one has a bead, but I usually fish one w/o a bead and peacock ice dubbing for the thorax.

[ralphs007 0]

 

Great comments so far, and I'll add this book by Mike Harding to the list:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Guide-North-Country-Flies-Step/dp/1845134893

 

TC

Really dont like that book, sorry. ;-)

 

But will recommend http://www.anglebooks.com/the-north-country-fly-yorkshire-s-soft-hackle-tradition-by-robert-l-smith.html

The best book since T. E. Pritt....

 

H

 

You said you don't like that book.After I saw the price,I not only don't like that book,I hate it! Lol.

[RapidRiver 0]

I've always been a big fan of soft hackles. I think they're coming back to the collective consciousness especially with the Tenkara (ugh) movement. Yvon Chouinard wrote an article last month about using them exclusively for a year. My suspicions are that it's more or less a thinly veiled shill for Tenkara products, but still interesting nonetheless. http://www.flyfisherman.com/fly-tying/yvon-chouinard-lessons-from-a-simple-fly/

[Chris_NH 0]

For me, soft-hackles are weirdly one of "those" flies.

 

They look fishy as all get out. I know they catch fish. I've fished alongside guys absolutely rocking them with a partridge and orange...and over the past 5 years, I've taken less than 5 fish with them, and not for lack of trying.

 

I have boxes of dozens of them, use them any time I think they might help (certainly before going to the nymph in anything but the fastest water), and still, I haven't seemed to put it all together.

 

They really are gorgeous little flies, though, so I keep tying them, in hopes that my luck with them will change.

 

I've felt the same way about various flies or lures over the years. Best thing for it is to leave lots of other flies at home and fish those flies a lot and you'll get the confidence.

 

In regards to soft hackles specifically, I almost always have one under a dry or behind a streamer when I don't have a good reason to be fishing something else. I can't count how many times the largest fish of the day ignores what they should be eating, like my #14 Red Quill dry during a Hendrickson hatch and hammers the #18 partridge and orange or peacock soft hackle dropper. And so often the little #14 or #16 soft hackle dropper a couple of feet behind a streamer will get hammered while the streamer gets ignored. Don't know what it is about little soft hackles but fish do like to eat them under so many circumstances.

[Cold 0]

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