Here are 3 soft hackle flies tied with body feathers of the pheasant. I don’t have any pheasant wings at the moment, but I bet there are some very useful feathers for soft hackles.

These flies are size 20, 16, and 10 (3x long streamer), with feathers taken from different parts of the bird. The neck feathers just above the band made a nice size 20 soft hackle. Just below the neck had some 14 & 16s. These are dark and iridescent, a good substitute for starling.

This photo shows the bird’s neck and approximate location of the size 20 and 16 feathers. No photo of the size 10 feathers, but I took them from the back, near the base of the tail.

The back portion of the bird has great looking hackle for steelhead flies.  Looks like a new project for me…

You may see packages of loose soft hackles in the fly shop. Avoid these.  These packages are the left overs after the best feathers have been used. The package may seem to be a bargin, but in the long run Its better to purchase the full skin, you get the best feathers and the skin itself stores the feathers sorted by size and color.

These packages are useful for providing legs on nymphs, and the very casual soft hackle tier.

Buy the skin.

Partridge is my favorite, each skin has tons of feathers, which are also useful for caddis dry fly wings (spent partridge pattern, for example).

Starling is another popular bird for creating soft hackles. The starling feathers are small, dark, and iridescent.  Very useful for tying down to size 20.

From the bottom, Hen backs are available and these are relatively inexpensive. They are available in a few colors and useful to tie larger sizes of soft hackle patterns (size 14 and larger, from my experience)

The top-most wing is a coot substitute. Several of the classic patterns call for coot feathers.

The wing in the middle is snipe substitute. The purple and snipe is a classic pattern.

Its not legal to sell coot and snipe skins, so the fly shops sell substitutes, bird parts that are similar, but legal.

Quail (on the left), and Ruffled Grouse are two other birds that are used. Pheasant call also be used.

These can be used instead of partridge, if you don’t have a partridge skin.

Sources

I like to always check my local fly shop first before ordering online. Its usually the same price. You can touch and feel the material. Compare several skins and choose the one that looks best to you, look at coloration and for tears and flaws in the skin (many of these are hunted, so shotguns and dogs are part of the processing).

Your local fly shop is an outstanding resource for tying materials, information, and supporters for fly fishing in your area. Give them business if you can.

My local fly shop, though, doesn’t stock many soft hackle materials, so I also shop online.  Most of the online fly tying merchants carry the most popular materials (hen backs, partridge, and maybe starling skins). Here are a few web sites that specialize in soft hackles these materials:

• Blue Ribbon Flies
• Great Feathers
• Jim’s Fly Company

If you have a favorite supplier, please leave a comment. I’ll update this list (and give them a little business).