Nymph: Soft Hackle Pheasant Tail

[Josh Barnett]

www.georgia-outdoors.com/photopost/data/501/PT_soft_hackle.jpg

Fly Name: Pheasant Tail Soft Hackle
Originator: Unknown – soft hackle flies have been around for centuries!
Recipe:

* Wet Fly / Nymph Hook size 14
* Tail and Body: Pheasant Tail Fibers
* Thorax: Peacock Herl
* Hackle: Hungarian Partridge or Grouse feather
* Thread: 6.0 Brown
* Bead Head (optional) – 1/8” gold or copper

Directions:

* Cut a clump of fibers from a pheasant tail, ensuring you cut the fibers full length
* Wrap hook with a thread base back to the hook bend and tie in the pheasant tail fibers with the tail at an appropriate length for the hook size. Do not cut off the excess material as it will be used to wrap the body.
* Lift the tag end of the PT fibers up and out of the way and advance your thread to just behind the eye
* To form the fly body, wrap the tag end of the pheasant tail fibers up to just behind the hook eye and tie down. Cut off any excess PT fiber at this point.
* Tie in 2 or 3 strands of peacock herl and wrap a thick thorax and tie down. Cut off any excess peacock herl.
* Take an appropriate size grouse or HP feather and tie in by the tip just forward of the thorax.
* Make 2 to 3 wraps of the soft hackle feather and tie down. Stroke the fibers of the soft hackle back and make a few thread wraps to make them flow back across the body of the fly.
* Whip finish and apply a small drop of fly head cement.

Fishing tips: Soft hackles can be fished alone, or as a dropper. The following is the “classic” method of fishing a soft hackle fly: Cast the soft hackle fly across and slightly downstream. Allow the fly to drift and arc across the pool and let the fly line play all the way out until straight downstream from you. Once the line has fully played out, hold the fly in this static position for 20 to 30 seconds. Believe it or not, many strikes on a soft hackle fly will occur while the fly is being held in the current like this. If no strikes occur, move downstream a few feet and repeat the process.

Fishing soft hackles is really getting back to the roots of the sport. Tie a few of these and enjoy!

Buck Henry