Whiskey Creek Fly Fishing

A while back, this site featured a series of posts intended to be a primer for tying soft hackled flies. Here is a summary of each post:
Introduction – Why fish with soft hackles, and some reference books
Demostration – Partridge and Yellow – start simple
Materials – all about the feathers that make up the soft hackles
Materials [...]

[Read more →]

The video demonstrations showed the most popular materials for soft hackle bodies, really the same materials for any nymph or wet fly. One body type that deserves a bit more explanation is hares mask. Hare’s mask is fur taken from the face of a bunny.  You can get hare’s ear or hare’s mask dubbing in [...]

[Read more →]

You can add a bead to a soft hackle just like any nymph. Here is a bead-head pheasant tail soft hackle, another great fish catching fly pattern.

[Read more →]

Here is another classic soft hackle fly pattern, the purple and snipe. Tying the purple and snipe is similar to the yellow and partridge. This video adds a demonstration of taking a covert feather from a wing.

[Read more →]

The starling and herl soft hackle fly pattern is one of my favorites. For fly fishing with soft hackles, my favorites usually involve peacock herl of some sort.
The starling feathers are usually small, and work well on flies size 14 and smaller. Other feathers may be substituted like partridge, hen, and quail.
Peacock herl is fragile, [...]

[Read more →]

This demonstration is for a green and partridge. With this one, I added a wire rib for more durability and a hare’s ear thorax which improves the action of the soft hackle.
The previous fly, a yellow and partridge, has a benefit of being a very simple and easy fly to tie. Adding a rib to [...]

[Read more →]

Lets start with the hackles, where these fly patterns get their name. Most soft hackles are tied with game bird skins, like partridge, pheasant, quail, or starling. The individual fibers of these feathers are much more flexible and “bendy” than rooster hackles. This allows the soft hackles to move while being fish.  Many believe the [...]

[Read more →]

Lets start the soft hackle class with a fly. Here is a demonstration of the Partridge and Yellow soft hackle, one of the most simple fly patterns you can tie. This uses just 2 materials, yellow silk and a partridge feather.

If you don’t have silk thread, use regular thread.  I like Ultra Thread, but any [...]

[Read more →]

This is the first of a series of postings that will show how I tie soft hackle flies. The series kicks off with a few photos and description of tying materials. Soon, there will be videos of tying demonstrations, starting with the simplest of soft hackles, the partridge and yellow.
Why soft hackles?
Soft hackle flies are [...]

[Read more →]