Soft hackles

[Ray Kunz]

What would you consider the ultimate in softness and flexibikity in feather choice for a sparsly hackled Spider fly? For what I'd like, a hen neck hackle is like piano wire.

[JZ]

I like to use hungarian partridge, or sometimes even grouse. Ring neck pheasants also work some times. I Also use hen hackle alot, have you tried tying the tips down and then wrapping it up?

JZ

[Hans Weilenmann]

Ray,

Jackdaw throat feathers would be a good candidate for what you are after.

Cheers,
Hans

[Alberto]

Ray,

I like using starling body feathers for sparsely tied spiders.

Regards,

Alberto

[JeffHamm]

Hi,

Depending upon the look and colours you want, I recommend any of starling, woodcock,hungarian partridge, bob quail, pheasant (cock and hen), and mallard wing coverts. I've tied soft hackles with all of these, and they all produce excellent soft hackle flies.

- Jeff

[Donald Nicolson]

If you want really soft hackles, you could try CDC.
There is a pdf. file of an article on this.

[softhackler]

Pretty hard to beat Plover.

[flyandtie]

the stem is a little thick but partridge will work

[Gandolf]

Hi Ray,

Some or all of the other posters probably have better knowledge than I do, but I have used three species of quail, as well as partridge, grouse, pheasant, starling, hen saddles, and I don't have any idea what, if anything else.

The softest feathers I have ever used are from a really cheap generic chicken hen saddle. The saddle I have is pretty large, though, and I don't think it will tie smaller than a #12, and maybe not even that small.

The softest feathers I have ever handled are from an owl, a very long time ago when I handled one that had been freshly killed. Incredibly soft. By comparison, the feathers I listed above are stiff. The owl feathers, of course, can't legally be used in tying, and even having them makes you subject to a frighteningly high fine.

Regards,

Gandolf