Tying Soft Hackle Flies

The classic soft hackle fly. (Click to enlarge)

Over the next several posts, I will talk about soft hackle flies. These flies are the model of simplicity. Three ingredients: Hook, silk, feather. The tie is an easy one, hardly a need of a step by step guide, but I’ll walk you through it.

Start your silk behind the eye.	Mount your hook in your vice and start your thread, either silk or floss. In these pictures I did not crimp the barb to illustrate the dimensions, but when tying for myself, I always do that before mounting the hook.
Tie in your favorite soft hackle feather.	Tie in the feather by the butt. Wrap down to mid point between the point of the hook and the barb.
Wrap the body with your thread	After wrapping back to the tie in spot, all that is left to do is take one or two turns of the hackle and tie off.
The finished fly	And there you have it. The simple, but effective, classic soft hackle fly.

In the next few posts, I’ll expand on this to discuss hooks, silks, feathers and construction options. There are countless options to modify this fly to catch your eye, and maybe make it more attractive to your local fish.