Soft hackles/wet flies

[dainw]

Okay I’ve been meaning to ask this question and since hankinsfly seemed to have some success on them this weekend at the white, thought it was as good an opportunity to bring it up as any.

To be honest I don’t really fish soft hackles and it’s part of my game that I think I need work on. So here are my questions:

1. Do you fish them?
2. If you fish them, what sort of on the water situation are you looking for where they are most effective?
3. How do you rig to fish them?
4. What technique do you use to fish them? Is it generally on the swing?
5. What patterns do you have the most success on?

[golferjeff]

Yes, moderate to heavy riffles, usually as the dropper or only fly on the rig, dead drift for a bit and then let it swing, caddis versions. fish seem to like caddis on the move (craneflies too). I had great success on the Kootenai swinging flies in REALLY big riffles. The redbands loved them.

[hankinsfly]

There's a certain type of lazy current I look for- think Hickory Hole or below Bull Shoals Dam on minimum flow to one full unit. Up to belly deep. Evening Hole has a good speed, but by the rock pile is too fast. Spillway Creek too fast. Below Swim Beach Bridge is pretty good- caught a number of trout here on soft hackles during Trout Camp. You want that lazy current to bow your line. Think about the speed your fly is swinging. If the current is too fast, or putting too big of a bow in your line on the swing, then mend away from the bow- it will slow down the fly's swing. Yes, I usually swing something like across all the way to directly downstream, or quartering downstream. I get many many hits on that quartered downstream position- if the swing speed is not too fast. Also get many hits directly downstream, hanging in the current. I have caught fish upstream and dead drift with soft hackles, and some people swear by this technique with wets. Argue your theories all you like, whether or not this looks realistic, but it catches fish. It is also proven that hatching swimming nymphs and pupa do swim across current (current not too fast). Not all nymphs float helplessly with the current. You don't always need a lot of insect activity to do well with soft hackles. I have had banner days when fishing soft hackles. For rigging, it's simple. One soft hackle tied to the bend of another. I usually mix it so the lead fly is more of an attractor and the trailing fly is more subdued and smaller. Or just try two different colors. You don't want smaller than 5x. Some strikes are wildly vicious- something about that swinging soft hackle pisses off those trout. Other times you'll just feel a bit of pressure. That's nearly all we did this weekend in the White, swing a pair of soft hackles, and did fine. I caught a dandy 17-18" brown and many rainbows. I've caught several 20" plus rainbows and browns fishing this method. It's easy fishing, honestly, which is maybe why I like it. The casting is the easiest you'll find- no gear, bobbers, shot. Soft hackles offer no air resistance so it's like there's hardly a fly attached. You can also take a second here and there and observe the beauty of the hillsides and river and bald eagles- don't have have to stay focused on your bobber or sighter. You do need to stay ready, however, because those wild strikes come out of nowhere.

[mirvc17]

Nice summary Hankins... I don't have much to add as I hadn't any experience with soft hackles until earlier in the year. It's a terribly fun way to fish for sure.

I'd say that much of the water in Evening Hole and Hickory Hole are great places to sling soft hackles. I was doing pretty good with it at Trout Camp on the 2nd morning. Fun to cast, and you get that tug. It was more effective for me than a dry fly during a heavy Trico hatch when I fished over in NM in March.

Most of my soft hackles are natural looking and have Starling feathers for the hackle.  Partridge is also really good too, but I'm currently in love with Starling.  It has a sheen to it, the feathers rarely break (even in very small sizes) and it makes for a mean midge pupae when it's wet.  Use a stout hook.  Those Gaelic Supreme wet fly hooks Hankins has in size 16 or 14 are just killer.  I caught fish after fish after fish and it never bent--had to resharpen it a little bit though.  He'll have to post what specific ones he likes the best (might be a post on the board). *hint hint*  I want to get some of those hooks so I can tie some more!  Actually, you should just post that fly recipe (olive body one had a nice segmented look to it).

[hankinsfly]

 This nice 17-18" brownie took a soft hackle over the weekend just below Bull Shoals Dam. Most all of our rainbows took a green butt soft hackle- still lots of caddis about. However, this brown ate a different soft hackle. I won't reveal which here. 😉Also fished a 1940's South Bend bamboo, which was cool also to catch a nice fish like that on a 75-ish year old rod. 

[mirvc17]

Ah-ha....

beaversbendflyshop.proboards.com/thread/770/gaelic-supreme-hooks

Coats and Clark Heavy.......I like the look of those Dave Roberts Henry's Fork Midge hooks....

[hankinsfly]

JP, that pic on bottom is the correct hook, but wrong pattern.. don't know if I have any pics of the pattern, but it is in my mental pattern book. I'll get the tying stuff out in the new house soon and work up a few. Just haven't felt like tying lately. Man I'm ready to fish though!

[mirvc17]

Haven't felt like tying much either, with the exception of some Slump Busters...

[jonbo]

What Hankinsfly said. No really, I love to fish soft hackles, when they'll hit them. For me, they often won't until they are at least messing around in midwater. Winter before last I had quite good luck with a kind of BWO soft hackle down at the Day Use hole. They were an olive or gray body, some kind of tail, and anything for a hackle, like some cdc, on bout a 22 hook. I just made those little specks up. They worked pretty well, although I couldn't understand how the fish could even locate them. After awhile the hackles would kind of come off because I couldn't figure out how to secure them very well on such a tiny fly, but they still seemed to keep working.

I'm jealous of you, "Hank". Last November when I was at the White, I was at Wildcat Shoals. There was quite a bit of bug activity and some noses. Just at the top of the shoals in the flat water I swung a soft hackle for awhile, green butts, red butts, some mayfly type things.  The conditions seemed good. I didn't really do well, maybe two not very impressive rainbows in an hour. But blood worm nymphs did fine for me in the riffles.

[troutbum54]

I wouldn’t say I fish soft hackles but I do fish the crossover between a soft hackle and a Nymph. I use the dead drifting technique with these and use CDC since it adds a little more movement and traps air pockets pretty well.

[jonbo]

So, TB, do you mean you're trying to drift it  drag-free as one would a dry, using mends and such, or drifting it under an indicator?

[troutbum54]

Well sometimes, I also use it on jig style flies while tight line nymphing if needed. In that case I’ll use a jig style hook and either drift it or, if some of the bugs are coming up (especially caddis), I can facilitate some jigging action to the fly. I feel like I get better hookups this way than swinging the fly, probably more user error than anything.

[jonbo]

I'm trying myself to tightline more, but just not getting the hang of it. I don't seem to be able to feel a connection with the fly, don't know where it is in the water column or horizontally.

[troutbum54]

With lighter flies it’s more of using the sighter to determine depth and angle (thing trigonometry) where the more horizontal the hypotenuse, the shallower the fly. Heavy nymphs have more feel though just because you can have more force applied to the rod tip because force has a lot to with the mass of the other factors are consistent, such as the exact same run you were fishing with a lighter Nymph will have the same inherent gravity and acceleration of the nymph due to water flow.

[hankinsfly]

So troutbum, you're just nymphing. Nothing to do with the topic.

[jonbo]

It was my fault, I think. I'm a notorious thread hijacker.

[turfdawg]

I personally very seldom use them. Maybe I should more thought. I do think they are nice for newbs and people like that because they don’t have to mend or pay attention to a indicator, just swing them and wait for the tug.

[jonbo]

Hey! I'm a "people like that"!

[mirvc17]

turfdawg,

I never thought it as a "newbie" method, but it certainly could be a great way to get someone hooked on fly fishing without the tangles and bobber watching of typical nymphing.

Initially I wasn't that interested in tying soft hackle flies, especially the classic patterns. I don't know, they just didn't seem that appealing to tie and most of the water I fish isn't soft hackle water. I do like tying small midge, mayfly and caddis patterns... especially now I know how much fun it is to fish them.

[hankinsfly]

The tug is the drug.

[darrelln09]

May 8, 2018 18:52:40 GMT -6 hankinsfly said:

The tug is the drug.

Exactly! I enjoy stripping streamers for that same reason even though it’s a little more work to cast those bigger buggers.

[dainw]

I just think of it as an old school technique that doesn’t get as much attention as nymphing, dries, or streamers. Not sure if it will ever become my go to method, but I think there are certainly some situations where it’s deadly and in my quest to be come a more well rounded fisherman, think it would be nice to know how to do.

Sounds like there are some different ways to fish them as well. Some people fishing them as a trailer fly in their two fly nymph rig and some people doing the more traditional down and across swing. A few more questions that these responses are eliciting....

1 Hankinsfly - this lazy water you’re referring to, this roughly the same current speed and depth that you’re looking for when you’re looking for ideal water to swing a woolly for small mouths? Not too slow not too fast? Or are you looking for slower than that, like what you find on the LIR?

2. Does anyone fish soft hackles behind an attractor dry ever?

3. Are you primarily imitating caddis when you’re fishing soft hackles or are these also used in mayfly hatches? I’ve always thought of them as a caddis imitation for whatever reason.

4. Do you ever want to add shot to your rig and get them down so the swing is pulling them up from the bottom?

5. What’s your hookset like oh bites coming from down stream of you? Are you raising straight up? Or are you sweeping to the downstream side of your body? I seem to have the lowest percentage of hook ups on bites coming from down stream of me or on the swing when nynphing.

6. Is there certain gear you recommend for fishing soft hackles? Do you want a slower action rod to be able to absorb the harder hits? How about leader length and tippet? Are you fishing standard 9 foot leaders or longer/shorter?

Think that about covers it....

[dainw]

Oh one more question that I just thought of....what do you do at the end of your swing? Do you attempt the leisenring lift? Do you let it dangle? Strip it?

[jonbo]

Wetflies, emergers, spiders, are used to imitate both caddis and mayflies that are preparing to emerge or even in the middle of emerging. For the river dynamic, think Evening Hole, Hickory Hole, Day Use Area, below the Swim Bridge, iow, light to medium current. It's pretty simple to swing an emerger. I'm sure there's plenty of subtleties. Unfortunately I don't know about them. I do try to mitigate the cross-current acceleration of the fly by mending. Also, they very often hit with the fly straight below me in the current, so I fiddle around some when it gets there. I've never gotten clear what the Leisenring lift is, but I will lift the rod some, pump it a little, let some line out, pull some back. I'll get some hits then. Probably more often than not the fish hook themselves as they tend to hit quite hard on all parts of the swing. So I set the hook fairly gently as the fish is doing a lot of that work and it's pretty easy to just snap the tippet off. I detect the hit both by feel and by watching the line and part of the leader on the surface.

Also, all that effort to achieve a dead drift when fishing a dry, the perfection in imitating the hatch, the timing of the hook set, it just doesn't seem to be there very much fishing the soft hackle. I don't know why. It does appeal to my particular laziness as a fisherman.

[mirvc17]

I haven't fished a soft hackle behind an attractor dry, but you could and let it dead drift then dangle below you.

I'm "imitating" whatever might be hatching or maybe nothing at all, not just caddis. Most of my soft hackle patterns are midges.

I've added 1 or 2 small shot to help get the rig deeper, yep. About 14" in front of the lead fly.

Hook sets can be violent. I normally just lift the rod tip up if the flies are far below me. If the hit comes from a cast nearly across stream, or quartering downstream just after the flies hit the water or start to swing then I'll attempt to set the hook into the fishes mouth (downstream usually unless I can see where the fish's head was pointing). You can twitch them and/or slow strip them as well. Quartering downstream cast sight fishing is awesome...cast, drift for a few feet, leader tightens, then strip or swing your flies across the face of the fish.

Fish do tent to pop off more on directly downstream. I think tightening the connection a little more gently at first helps. Once the fish is on and staying on, then you can start to put more pressure on, especially with small fly patterns.

A rod with a soft tip or maybe even fiberglass might help some, but I don't think its critical. Trying not to use below 5X is probably a good idea, unless the fish are taking more subtly.

9 foot leader is fine, but I really like using a 13.5' Suppleflex leader if I have the casting room and the water conditions/size makes sense. Makes a gentle presentation and lots of leader to absorb the shock.