Soft hackle wets

[Hawkeye]

I have been an avid fly fisherman for years, but have done little soft hackle fishing, until a friend had great success this weekend. It is frustrating to have to learn all over, but it is also a real challenge. I plan to tie some light green soft hackles to simulate caddis pupa, and hope to have similar success.

I guess I'm just old fashioned, ... or maybe just too lazy (read incompetent) ... but I tie and use soft hackle wets a LOT.

Partidge 'n yellow (red and green too).

I noticed in some discussions on other boards, not a lot of people use these.

Why ??

 

[narcodog]

Next to dry flies, I fish s/h's more than anything. I also love to collect the materials to tie the classic s/h's. I do not tie them with any synthetics, except for some mylar on occasion.

 

[Petergoodman]

I use Soft Hackles in three ways:
1. As others have noted, tend to use full collar on all nymphs - a variation of Joe Brooks' "tie it in the round" philosophy.
2. As a searching fly - not much going on bug-wise, a nice riffle in front of me, so work it over with a SH to see what is there.
3. Here is the part I have not seen others mention, and is covered by Nemes. SH flies can represent lots of things - emerging bugs fished just below or in the surface, nymphs fished on the bottom, drowned duns, or even drowned spinners fished in the film or below (see Nemes Trico SH as example). I tie a lot of SH flies using dubbing to match the dun, a very sparse tail of SH fibers, and a sparse collar to loosely represent wings that have been tossed about and mangled by the current. Try fishing these downstream of a hatch - can work pretty well, especially if the hatch is happening in a place that due to water height you just can't quite wade to safely.