what are youre favorite soft hackles for fishing warm water? i’ve gotten a number of bird skins with tons of feathers perfect for size 6-12 soft hackle flies. and i’ve been really itching to use some of them, but i’ve never really tied soft hackle fies before.so what would you recommend? i mainly fish for bluegill, crappie, or bass, so they would be my intended targets.
Hi DDR,
Soft hackles are great for LMB. Natural colors work best for me. I particularly like flies with palmered hackle on the back two thirds of the fly and a heavy collar up by the eye. The difficult thing is the definition. When do soft hackles become Wooly Buggers? Size #6 might be a little big for brim. 8T 
Soft hackles, especially with a gold bead are some of my top summer time Bream producers. As far as patterns or colors, I use floss or fur dubbed bodies, with a wire rib and any mottled brown or olive hen hackle. The beauty is these same flies work great for trout.
Jim Smith
I’ve found that bluegills in particular like a yellow and grey but I also often use a squirrel hair and brown grouse flymph.
warm water soft hackles would probably be the same as cold water soft hackles. bluegills arent too fussy when it come to eating. 
light blue floss body with a pheasant hackle, peacock hurl body with a pheasant hackle. Both have worked with both trout and pan fish.
Eric
I’ve done very well on bluegills and crappies using soft-hackled woolly buggers.
I was going to say about the same thing. Frailey’s Baby Buggers 10 -14 can be excellent for pans and I have caught smallies and 1 rainbow(!) as well. Very versitile fly that can be tied a whole lot of ways.
Luckily for all of us, bluegills are seldom fly picky.
I really like the look of the ‘classic’ soft hackle flies, and I’ve caught a lot of bluegills with them over the years. Seems that whichever one I have decided to fish with works just fine. The key is usually presentation, anyway.
Bass, however, can be more choosey (not all that much, but sometimes…)
Bass also like a big meal, or the impression of one. One of the benefits of the soft hackle style of fly is that you can make it look really large.
Some of the larger feathers on our birds often go into tails or such, as few trout flies want a collar that is three to four inches wide. On a bass fly these are great.
With hooks in the 1/0 to 4/0 range, you can tie on a slim silver or pearl ribbed body then use a large white soft hackle and it will make a credible, and easy to cast, shad imitation. Use gold and a large pheasant feather and it’s a decent bluegill fly. Options are endless, but very effective. It is a great way for those who like lighter rods to still be able to cast something large enough to get the bass interested.
I’ve been playing lately with ‘tail weighting’ on a loose version of a soft hackled fly. I’m trying to get the fly to fall tail first, with the hackle collar acting as both a brake to slow the fall and a way to make a lighter fly move more water…I’m hoping it will be a good fly for tageting vertical cover…so far, it looks promoisng, but I haven’t fished them yet.
By the way, my absolutley favorite subsurface bluegill fly is just a small bunch of black pheasant tail fibers for a tail, and then a shank covered with peacock herl. Used to put on a hackle, but found out the fish don’t care so why take the time to do it. Pretty effective trout fly, too…
Buddy
I have four really awesome soft hackles I use for warm water.
For 'gills, I tie one with a peacock herl body and another with black dubbing. They seem to like it when it falls very slowly or sits just under the surface.
For crappie, I tie bead head soft hackles with either chartreuse wire or red wire. The red almost always works. Let 'em sink and hold on. They’ll usually hit it on the fall.
Hi Misterpaul;
what sizes do you tie your two patterns?
Thanks in advance;
Wayneb
What has worked for me is the GARTSIDE SOFTHACKLE. Streamer hook, tie Chartreuse and Yellow Marabou on the front 1/4 of the hook. Add a little flashabou and a cone head. EASY AND KILLER!
i saw a fly on another web site fly fish ohio should be good for bream and is fairley easy to tie. uses soft hackle and gimp feather tied flat wing style. Cant wait till warmer weather to give it a try. this fly is in fly fish ohio tying video
goog luck
For warm water, I take #10 and #12. Any bigger than that will result in lots of misses. Any smaller, and you start hooking the really small, pesky bream.