If you have been tying flies for any length of time and fishing them longer you have probably run across a Jack Gartside fly. Jack Gartside developed a number of patterns in the later half of the 20th century for coldwater, warmwater and even saltwater species. He was very innovative and focused on keeping his … Read more
Wrapping up soft hackles (for a while) with the Craven’s Purple Soft Hackle. I generally refer to it as the Craven’s Soft Hackle as you can change the color of the body and you then you have a Craven’s Orange Soft Hackle, or a Craven’s Chartreuse Soft Hackle (you get the idea). I ran across … Read more
The Hot Spot Spider fly this week is more of a generic soft hackle “spider” fly than a traditional pattern. This is not a specific pattern, that I know of, more one I just threw together. I have been tying a lot of soft hackle flies over the last few months and all of them … Read more
The Tupp’s Indispensable soft hackle first caught my eye in Sylvester Nemes’ book Two Centuries of Soft-Hackled flies. It mostly attracted me because of the pink in the fly. Also, being another Clyde style fly it’s sparseness I also found interesting. Just some yellow tying silk, pinkish dubbing and a ginger hackle. Nothing to it, … Read more
The Sanctuary fly is one of those simple soft hackle flies that should be in every fly box, every soft hackle fly box that is. It is a very versatile fly in both cold water and warm water situations. Think of it as similar to the Woolly Bugger for streamers. You don’ leave home without … Read more
I chose the August Brown for this weeks fly because it is similar to last weeks soft Hackle, The Winter Brown, and because it is very simple and straight forward. It does call for Grouse as the hackle collar and I used some Ruffed Grouse in this one. I imagine a speckled hen hackle would … Read more
I have mentioned before, in other posts and articles, about how much I enjoy learning new things about fly fishing and fly tying. I recall a time a number of years ago I was teaching a beginning fly tying class and one of the flies we tied was a warmwater fly called It’s-A-Bug. The version … Read more
This week is kind of a re-visit to a fly I did a few weeks ago; the Partridge & Yellow. Although, this week it is the Partridge & Orange and the Partridge & Green (or Chartreuse in this case). The reason for this is that I wanted to show that you do not have to … Read more
The Orange Fish Hawk is a wonderful soft hackle for both cold and warm water species especially when the water is clear and slow. This fly has been around for many years and was included in Ray Bergman’s book Just Fishing published in 1932. I first tied this for chasing panfish and bass in some … Read more
The Woodcock Quill is another old soft hackle pattern. I found this one in Sylvester Nemes’ book (Two Centuries of Soft-Hackle Flies) as well. His book mentions Modern Trout Fly Dressing, by Roger Woolley which was published in 1932. I was actually looking at tying the Peacock & Partridge (which is very similar to the … Read more
I chose this weeks fly, another soft hackle, because of it’s interesting history as well as it’s similarity to other soft hackles I have tied recently. This fly is also found in Sylvester Nemes book, Two Centuries of Soft-Hackled Flies. The Reid’s Assassin is another very simple fly, like many of the soft hackle patterns. … Read more