soft hackles

[mutzinbaugh]

i want to buy a good "how to" soft hackle/wet fly book. what do you guys recommend?

 

[PhilC]

Leisenring

 

[BelAirSteve]

Dave Hughes "Wet Flies: Tying and Fishing Soft-Hackles, Winged and Wingless Wets, and Fuzzy Nymphs"

 

[dc410]

+1 on the Dave Hughes book. Very informative, I find myself going back through it and rereading many of the chapters over the years.

 

[Rolf]

Another vote for the Dave Hughes book. You may also like The Soft Hackle Fly and Tiny Soft Hackles by Sylvester Nemes. Good Luck!

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Well heck. I just learned something! I'll be getting this book.

 

[McSneek]

What more do these books say than "Cast, mend, let fly swing, retrieve, rinse and repeat?"

 

[GenCon]

I also agree with Dave Hughes book. Good read. Good info. I am sure I have read it at least 4 times.

GenCon

 

[beeber2]

The Soft-Hackled Fly Addict
Sylvester Nemes

Check the library, that's where I was able to get it and read it.

 

[lv2nymph]

mutzinbaugh wrote:
i want to buy a good "how to" soft hackle/wet fly book. what do you guys recommend?

Don't let this guy fool you, he already knows how to fish these flies. I stood next to him in the little "J" and watched him catch trout with them. int: But seriously Fly Addict and fly imitations from S N are both good and interesting reads, Dave's book is also good. Two centuries of soft- hackled flies ( also Nemes )has patterns from 1747 up to now, I've tied and fished them and they're still catching fish. You've seen them Jearomy, they look good and catch fish.

 

[shakey]

ray bergman's trout,for all fishing.

 

[redietz]

McSneek wrote:
What more do these books say than "Cast, mend, let fly swing, retrieve, rinse and repeat?"

Cast upstream with short line and keep tight to the fly. It's the way they're done it for hundreds of years in the north of England, where spiders (soft hackles) were invented.

Suspend from a dry fly and fish dead drift. Or just fish a team of wets upstream or across and dead drift.

Fish like a nymph, under a strike indicator.

Grease well with floatant and fish like a dry fly.

Use the point fly as anchor suspend the hand fly above the water, raising and lowering.

There are many ways to fish soft hackles, and swinging them is often not the best way. (Although sometimes it is.)

I add my vote for Dave Hughes' book.

If you want to go more into the history, find a copy of Pritt's North Country Flies or Edmonds and Lee's Brook and River Trouting. Or WC Stewart's The Practical Angler. You can't go wrong with Leisenring/Hidy, either.

More recently, any of Roger Fogg's wet fly books. Or Tying and Fishing Soft Hackled Nymphs by Allen Magee. Or if you're looking for a pattern book A Guide to North Country Flies and How to Tie Them by Mike Harding.

And although Neme's deserves a lot of credit for popularizing them in the country, I personally don't think his books have as much to say as the original material.

 

[Tups]

RE. Very good reading list. I have them all in a basket by the reading chair. But you forgot one essential title: "Fly Fishing, the North Country Tradition," by Leslie Magee, 1994, Smith Settle Inc.
And don't forget "The Upstream Wet Fly". By Terry Lawton, 2011, Robert Hale LTD.
Also, Pete Hidy's son is preparing a manuscript on flymphs and soft hackles for future publication.

 

[geebee]

I thought the Neme's book was a waste of cash. better to borrow it. it's short and kind of one dimensional - kind of like Art Lee's riffling hitch book. both techniques are very useful but not enough in them to give $$$ value in a book.

I'd borrow Oliver Edwards Essentials skills DVD from Netflix or Blockbuster if you could - deals with all upstream nymphing and north country spiders.

The Terry Lawton & Mike Harding books are better value. Mike Harding was a comedian in England btw - aka the Rochdale Cowboy :

 

[redietz]

Mike Harding was a comedian in England btw - aka the Rochdale Cowboy :

He still is , AFAIK. He also writes a monthly humor column for Fly Fishing and Fly Tying (The British Magazine, not the American one of the same name.)

I thought Lawton had a lot information, but that it was not well organized. Worth reading, but only after you'd read some of the others.

The Essential Skill DVD is great, but it's part of a series by Edwards with the same name. The volume of interest is Wet Fly Fishing on Rivers. A lot of it is out on YouTube, but is definitely worth owning.

 

[franklin]

One other expert you may want to check out is Davy Wooten. He's got some videos out and uses/ties some of the old English classics.

 

[BelAirSteve]

The Hughes book gives much credit to Nemes and Leisenring, and discusses many of their techniques. It has been about 2 years since I read it, and I WILL read it again. The one thing I found most interesting, which I have not been able to do successfully - yet - is fish soft hackles upstream as you would present dries.

 

[geebee]

I present my soft hackles directly upstream and do a figure of eight retrieve to keep the line tight and keep it moving at the speed of the current, the same as I would for nymphs. That also works for emergers btw.

I'm not sure a dry fly up and across presentation wouldnt give unnatural drag or twist to the fly.

Also bear in mind that these north country streams are pretty narrow - the Dove, Eden or wharfe , are no more than 20ft wide in most parts.

Hatches are also very sparse and slow lazy pools are few and far between, hence wading upstream with a team of spiders cast into seams was the solution.

 

[tomitrout]

soft hackles are fun. Fish 'em all kinds of ways, effective all up and down the water column. More fun than flippin' a nymph rig over and over and over...

 

[beeber2]

geebee, that sure looks like a picture of Sandfly. Hey Bob, I didn't know you could play.