Description

This is one of the traditional soft hackle patterns. It is a great fishing fly and an easy fly to learn how to tie. I catch bluegill, sunfish, crappie and trout on this pattern. It works well fished without any weight on the leader and allows it to dead drift right at the surface during a hatch. After the drift is over let it swing across the current and hold on for the strike.

Materials

Hook: Tiemco 3769, Size: 10-16

Thread: Pearsalls Gossmer Silk Orange

Body: Orange Silk Tying Thread or Floss

Hackle: Hungarian Partridge or Whiting Brahma Hen Neck

Head: Orange Silk Tying Thread

Step 1

Place the hook in the vise.

Step 2

Start the tying thread on the hook and begin to wrap towards the hook bend.

Step 3

Continue to wrap the tying thread towards the bend and stop when the thread is above the hook barb. Be careful to keep the thread body as smooth and even as possible.

Step 4

Wrap the tying thread forward towards the hook eye and stop wrapping about one hook eye length behind the hook eye. This will leave enough room to tie in the hackle feather and build a small head.

Step 5

Select a Hungarian Partridge feather or Whiting Brahma Hen neck feather that the fibers or barbs will extend slightly beyond the hook bend when wrapped on the hook. Strip the soft downy fluff off the base of the feather stem.

Step 6

Hold the tip of the feather in your finger tips and lightly pull the hackle fibers towards the base of the stem with your other hand.

Step 7

Now trip the tip of the feather leaving a small triangle shape above the longer fibers. This triangle is what we are going to tie to the hook with our thread to hold the hackle feather in place.

Step 8

Tie the small triangle to the hook directly in front of the body. The natural curve of the feather should be curving down towards the table top.

Step 9

Begin to wrap the hackle starting right at the spot that the feather is tied in. Make sure not to twist the feather when wrapping it so the natural curve of the fibers will curve back over the body. Two to four turns of hackle will work fine. You can experiment with more or less hackle depending on the place you are fishing the fly.

Step 10

After you have completed wrapping the feather, tie it off with your thread and trim the excess feather as close as possible.

Step 11

Take a few wraps of thread to cover any feather fibers that are sticking up where the hackle feather was trimmed off.

Step 12

Whip finish the fly. You can use the wraps of the whip finish to help build a smooth, clean head.

Step 13

Apply a small drop of head cement to the head to help secure the whip finish. Pearsalls silk thread is unwaxed and the cement will soak into to protect the thread from breaking while a big fish chews on it!

Step 14

The finished Orange and Partridge Soft Hackle. This pattern can be tied with a variety of different body colors including olive, yellow, red, purple and green. You can even try tying this pattern using tinsel of flashabou material for the body which will give it a totally different look.