There are tons of soft hackle flies ... don't know that I'd really call them a category. Some patterns ... Patridge & Yellow, March Brown Spider, Starling & Herl, Snipe & Yellow ... many of them have floss or thread bodies.
A tip or two ... typical feathers for this are grouse or partidge, and sometimes some of the pheasant feathers can be used. Depending which way you wind hackle, you want to strip the side of the feather that will be closest to the hook. It only takes 1 1/2 to 2 turns of hackle at the most .. it's done very sparse. Wind forward with the hackle slightly so that when you tie off you don't trap the hackle at the tie off point. Use a hackle guard to push back the feathers to allow you to tie over the base of the feathers so that they sweep back .. if you try to use your fingers to do it, you'll end up pulling the fathers toward the top of the hook and leave none on the bottom. Hope that helps. Tie some great ones. BobDal [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ultimateflytying.com ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2003 4:03 PM Subject: [VFB] SOFT HACKLE: FLIES > Hello ALL > I was wondering if any of you could enlighten me on the category of flies > called SOFT HACKLE. I am going to tie some of these and need to know > more. > Any names or good patterns you might be able to help me with would be > great. > Thanks > Scott Crosby > I got a 27 inch red fish yesterday in the Mosquito Lagoon area of the > Indian River. > Florida >
