Peacock & Partridge

[redietz 0]

9 minutes ago, Poopdeck said:

Micmac, that was one of the coolest videos I've seen. 

Redietz, I'm willing to bet that you've caught fish with the peacock hurl all broken, hanging and or missing as well. 

Yep.  I've caught on a bare hook before as well.

None of those ways are really my first choice, though.

[niveker 0]

On 2/26/2021 at 12:39 PM, Dallasblues said:

Any criticism

I would happily tie that fly on the end of my line without hesitation. 

And I'd take heed of Moshup's advice regarding a full skin.  Or any hen skin, really.  Those cheap India hen backs can be a real bargain if your able to browse them in person.  

You can pretty much conclude from the posts above, everyone has their preferred style when it comes to hackle length.  In general, I like mine a bit longer, reaching the hook bend or beyond, but also tie them shorter.  I don't consider myself an expert, but from my limited experience watching these flies when submerged in a current, a longer tied hackle, I think, represents wings or even a full body, but when tied shorter, represent legs, especially when tied with a pronounced thorax.  Who knows if the trout think they're legs or wings, I doubt they analyse it to that extent, it moves and looks like food, so they eat it.  Thats what soft hackle flies do extremely well, they impart movement.  Different hackle lengths just will move differently, but they still move, so tie 'em up in different lengths, heavily and sparsely hackled.  I can guarantee they'll all catch fish.  And as others have said, they don't even need to be tied neatly to impart movement.  As fly tiers we care way more about the appearance of the fly than most trout ever will, which isn't a bad thing. 

Here's just one Brookie I took last fall on a beat up orange soft hackle, so go figure.   

 

[Woodenlegs 0]

Good job