I've been on a wet fly tying kick lately. You can thank Justin over at Fishing and Thinking in Minnesota for that. All his drooling over soft hackles got me wanting to expand my collection of wet flies.
I understand the beauty, effectiveness, and sheer simplicity of the soft hackled fly.
But my bugger barns are often unfairly represented with only a few of these little gems. Sometimes tyers get too wrapped up in to tying the ultra-realistic fly pattern. While often effective, I believe that fish can become too selective with these patterns, and sometimes a simple wet fly will break fish out of a funk and will get them to take a fly again. I definitely don't fall in to the group of ultra-realistic fly tyers; I like experimenting with different materials to achieve my desired outcome, even if they are more abstract. I do, however, occasionally fall in to a rut, tying the same old patterns, losing my inspiration for tying. I whole-heartedly welcome any new inspiration or ideas for new patterns. The best part of all this is getting to field test these flies on the water.
Man those are great. I especially love the two on the curved shank hooks. Try the trailing shuck that John Montana put on his Wilted Spinach... I use that a lot.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful flies - I'd like to have a bunch. In fact, you've got me inspired to do some drinking and tying tonight - thanks. My wife thanks you too.
I'm curious as to why the soft hackle seems to work during some hatches, but not during others... there must be some bio reason that I am not picking up on here.
For example, here are two situations in which I've found it to be deadly:
(1) During winter midge hatches.
(2) During evening mayfly hatches.
In these situs, it didn't work:
(1) Sunny spring day with no hatch (probably understandable).
(2) Monday - sunny early summer day with intense caddis hatch.
I wonder if the softie I was using on Monday doesn't look like the caddis as it rise up while hatching... they were actually taking a HE while it rose on the swing... interesting.