Quote Originally Posted by herefishy View Post
I'm curious about where a soft hackle ends and a nymph starts - it seems to me that it is with the wingcase. Or is it just how it is fished?
I wish I had a good answer to this question, but I am by no means an expert. I assume that most people refer to "softhackles" as a fly that uses a soft feather wrapped circumfirentially around the head with a thread/silk body like a traditional spider pattern. To me "softhackle" seems more of a generic term used to describe any fly with a softhackle collar and could be tied as a nymph like pattern fished deep with the softhackle imitating legs and adding movement, tied light to imitate emergeres, using wingcases or wings if wanted to imitate whatever stage of insect you want. There are probably more specific names for each of these flies and "softhackle" may refer to one specific subset, but I seem to find myself thinking of them as described above. I have heard of the term "flymph" as well and remember that there was a flytying book about them from the 70's I think, but don't recall. It was a popular book that brought softhackled flies to the attention of many american flyfishers. Someone with more expertise in the area will hopefully chime in and enlighten us all, but that is the way I find myself using the term. Either way, they are fun to tie and to fish.

Greg