Monday, February 21, 2011

Soft Hackles

Soft Hackles
One of my favorite soft hackles is the classic Woodcock and Hare Lug.  Over the years I have fished a lot of soft hackle and hare's ear patterns.  Whether its tied with the classic silk abdomen and dubbed thorax or a complete body of hare's ear dubbing, both styles have worked well for me.  I inadvertently experimented with this old stand by of mine today.    While tying this afternoon,  I became distracted by my three year old and grabbed a package of spiky squirrel dubbing instead of my usual hares ear.  The yellow silk that was intended for the abdomen became the ribbing and was also exchanged for wire for a little extra weight on flies that will not be fished in the film.

Granted simply changing dubbing is not a huge departure from the norm, but I really like the way spiky dubbing on these soft hackles look, they will definitely catch em...
Labels: , ,

4 comments:

  1. Feather ChuckerMarch 4, 2011 at 8:13 PM

    Great Blog. I like the look of it. When you get a chance tell me what you think of mine. http://fishwithkev.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. MajBobDecember 22, 2011 at 10:38 AM

    Very nice soft hackles. The 2 in the foreground appear to have different hackle than those in the background. Can you explain the difference? (i.e., they don't both appear to be Woodcock??)

    Thanks!
    Bob Hendry
    SoMDFlyFisher AT gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. MajBobDecember 22, 2011 at 10:45 AM

    Very nice soft hackles. The 2 in the foreground appear to have different hackle than those in the background. Can you explain the difference? (i.e., they don't both appear to be Woodcock??)

    Thanks!
    Bob Hendry
    SoMDFlyFisher AT gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Jersey AnglerDecember 26, 2011 at 11:07 AM

    The feathers were pulled from different parts of the bird. The skin I was using was picked over pretty good. I believe I took some feather fibers from larger feathers and tied them on in a small bundle that was spun abound the hook shank to make the soft hackle.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)