Tell me about SOFT-HACKLES

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
1

Hi all,

Some of you might remember when I logged-on here last year I mentioned I was out of fly fishing for many years and have just recently re-found myself. I have never fished soft-hackles, always relying on either drys, nymphs or streamers. They are supposed to simulate emergers, correct?, and by reading I surmise they are supposed to be fished downstream on a swing much like streamers. Am I on the right track here? What else should I know before attempting to fish them next year? What patterns and sizes are popular where and when…remember, I’m in the northeast. I figure if anyone has these answers, it will be the members here. I can’t begin to tell you all how much I’ve learned from people here in the past year. How can you not love FAOL. Thanks in advance.

Ken

2

Ken -

Big subject, and there are a lot of people much more experienced and knowledgeable than me to chime in at some point.

If by emergers, you also mean cripples, you are off to a good start. They’re kind of the same thing, for all practical purposes, but how you fish them can be distinctly different.

Soft hackles can be fished just about any way you can imagine to do it, as long as they stay in the water !! Upstream and deaddrifted as you would a nymph, without an indicator. Or with an indicator, maybe in the form of a dry fly with the soft hackle trailing it. And down and across, on the swing, as you’ve suggested.

Soft hackles can range from extremely simple little things to something more complicated. The simplest one I’ve used is one I fished yesterday for rainbows in one of our mountain streams. It is tying thread for the body and a starling feather for the soft hackle. The fly that triggered this pattern for me is a bit more complicated - the Water Cricket, which has a simple embroidery floss body, ribbed with the tying thread and using starling for the hackle.

This is a Water Cricket tied by Jeff Hamm of Auckland, NZ. It has caught trout everywhere I’ve fished it since Jeff sent me some a while back.

The soft hackle that was best for me yesterday was basically a simplified pheasant tail nymph pattern - forget the weight ( read beadhead ), wingcase and legs, just substiute a soft hackle after tying and ribbing the body and adding peacock herl for the thorax. It took fish when trailing a dry fly and when fished down and across. If you fish it that way, let it hang at the end of the swing - probably get more hits at that point, and as you start to pick it up than at any other time.

Partridge and orange is a favorite and classic soft hackle fly - one of many. At least as many permutations and combinations as there are body colors and types of hackles to use. That’s why it’s a big subject.

Partridge is a favorite for the soft hackle. But hen, pheasant, starling, brahma hen and all manner of other feathers are used. The point is simply to have a rather sparse bunch of flexible and flexing feather barbs moving around suggesting that something alive, and edible, is at an appropriate level in the water column.

Can’t speak to your particular waters in the N.E. But I think you can probably just start off tying a dun for the waters you fish and stop when you get through the abdomen and think of finishing it off with simple thorax and a soft hackle rather than wings and hackle ( whether traditional dry fly or parachute style ).

Didn’t get around to fishing them yesterday, but I did tie some down and dirty soft hackle coppery johns. “Coppery” so no one takes offense at calling this creature by the name copper john. Down and dirty because there was no wingcase, no expoxy, and no legs - just tails, a copper body, a peacock herl thorax, and some grizzly hen hackle. I’m confident it will catch fish if presented properly.

Well, that should get you started thinking about soft hackles, and, hopefully, form a base for others to challenge and build on.

John

3

Hi Ken,

You can fish soft hackles down stream on the swing. You can also fish them upstream to rising fish (cast above the fish, like with a dry, and dead drift it back over the fish), and John Scott has demonstrated you can even strip them back through a pool. If you cast upstream, the fly will sink, then you can let it drift past you and downstream. As the line reaches the end of the slack, it will tighten and the fly will rise up (like an emerging nymph). This can be very effective!

Anyway, I recommend checking out the FOTW archives and check out the “Water Cricket”, which is one of my favorite patterns. Also, partridge and orange, and hare’s ear and partridge, and Baillie’s Black Spider are other good ones.

Sylvester Nemes’ book “The Soft Hackled Fly Addict” is one I’ve found very good.

  • Jeff
4

Hi, Ken.
Take a look at this site:
http://winglesswets.forumwww.com/index.php
It’s all about soft hackles.
Joe

5

Ken,
I only have experience fishing Soft Hackle flies in lakes. The Partridge and Hare’s Ear is the most effective fly I have ever used. I never over hackled it, only a few wraps of Partridge. One day I fished doubles by attaching a second fly on the back end of the main hook and I landed 2 trout, 3 times. I spent most of my life being skeptical of Soft Hackle flies, because I fished mainly Dries, but they have been the most effective flies I ever used.
Here is a good example: (by John Ruberto) http://www.danica.com/flytier/softhackle_swap_2006/fs_16.jpg
Doug

6

Just yesterday I meet another FOALer who lives locally
I was telling him about a hatch that for 5 weeks during the spring blankets the river that’s just yards from his house along with other northeast rivers such as the Housatonic and the Androscoggin
It’s a large caddis called the Alderfly
If you’re fishing a nymph or dry for this hatch, you’re pretty much wasting your time as the fish key in on the fast moving emergers.
The only way to go is with a centuries old pattern called the peacock and partridge…a soft hackle
…One of the most productive flies I carry

7

We fish them:
-drifting in relatively fast-moving water with a weight about 18" above them. Then swung after the drift.
-Cast into a pool of little/no moving water and “twitched” back in after a cast. Caught like 15 rainbows/browns just last week in about an hour doing this.

I just started making a beadhead softhackle that has been working well.

8

I tried my first soft hackle this past Friday on a local tailwater. Most of the fish I’ve caught up there recently have been on 20’s and 22’s - either brassies or zebra midges.

I found a pod of the largest trout I’d ever seen there and proceeded to cast everything in my box at them. Never did hook up, but casting a size 16 olive soft hackle with a glass bead was flat lethal on the somewhat smaller fish downstream. I now understand the “soft hackle slam” - when hanging down in the current, trout hit these things like a largemouth bass hitting a frog. Pretty cool stuff.

I’ve spent most of the weekend tying more. :slight_smile:

9

Thanks for all the replies. I knew I’d come away with something good from the people here. Soft hackles will definitely be part of my arsenal next year and I’ll experiment with different ways of fishing them. Since I don’t tie (I guess it’s inevitable that I will), I’m asking if any of you generous folks could tie me up a bunch (subtle, aren’t I :)) Thanks again.

Ken

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Soft hackles, don’t leave home without them—lots of them! 8T :slight_smile:

11

Noooooo. Soft Hackles are bad, bad, bad…Don’t take any with you to a tailwater…especially not olives in the 16-18 range…Do not fish them across and down, letting them swing in the current. I would also strongly suggest that you not take between 6 and 12 with you because they might get chewed to bits…

12

Technically, it’s not a caddis. It’s a relative of the dobson fly (hellgrammite.)

A wet fly is definitely the way to go, though. Besides soft hackles, there’s a traditional winged wet called the Alderfly. It’s essentially a winged version of the fly you pictured.

13

They do tend to get hammered and beat up very quickly.

14

Ken,

I’m not the fanciest tier but I would be happy to tie you some soft hackles. I will tie some patterns already suggested and some others. PM me with your address if you would like.

15

This happens to both me and my soft hackles all the time! :slight_smile: :wink:

16

They are quick and easy to tie though.

17

Perhaps I should have been more clear
There’s the true alderfly and then there’s the caddis that here in the northeast is called the alder fly
Confusing to say the least, but true
It took me a long time to figure this out myself.
With a very quick look around at the web, I found this
Angling the Androscoggin- A River Redeemed | Flyfish.com

The alder fly is the signature hatch for the Androscoggin and occurs in late June. The alder fly is not actually an alder fly, but rather a caddis that roosts in the alder trees as adults after they hatch. And they hatch in huge numbers. It is possible to shake thousands of the adults from a tree by giving a branch a shake. This particular alder fly is a good size caddis that is about half to three-quarters of an inch - approximately a size 14 hook.

The ‘alder fly’ in my area are more like a size 12
They have molted wings rather that the grey-brown wings of the true alderfly

18

Ah! It was kind of a moot point anyway, since a true alderfly looks enough like a caddis that you can use the same flies for both.

19

The Softhackle is just about the easist fly to dress, especially the North Country Spiders.
Have a look at the web site below.

20

Hi,

Also check out the article under Advanced Fly Fish (a previous article) titled “The spider patterns of Northern England”. It covers fishing technique quite well. Donald’s site is a great resource for patterns, so bookmark it!

  • Jeff