Monday, November 11, 2019

Time To Rethink What We Fish With

Although the calendar tells us that winter is still a month away the weather tells us something different. We have experienced some pretty cold nights and chilly days in the last week. The guessers are saying that it will be colder in the next week and the talk of snow is a hot topic. To us anglers we have to change, no longer are the days of serious dry fly fishing, or the time of those exquisite little sulphur soft-hackles. For the most part the brookies and browns have completed their spawning and are now seeking food to enable some bulk to happen to their bodies to enable them to go forward into a tough winter. This is the time to reshape our fly boxes and to downsize the flies we use. As you see in the fly box above there is some what of a variety of soft-hackles and they are the core of my winter selection. They average in size from 12-14. I believe that smaller sizes will work better but for my eyes I'll have to settle for flies a bit bigger.

Materials for winter soft-hackles are simple. Various colored silk threads, sparse dubbing and hackle of starling, woodcock, grouse, pheasant and partridge.


Olive and Woodcock


Purple and Starling...dark purple silk.


Orange and Woodcock...a light dubbing on the body.


Purple and Starling. The body is dubbed with gray squirrel. This fly worked real well yesterday.


The February Red. Red silk body, hares mask thorax and grouse hackle.


Purple and Starling... light purple silk.










22 comments:

  1. Wonderfully simply ties and beautiful as well. I'm particularly fond of the purple and starling. If the season were still open for us I'd fish them all. 8-13" expected up here tonight; tying season is now in full swing.

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    1. mike
      Thanks
      Mike your choice of Purple and Starling is a good one. Simplicity is key.
      8-13 is a bit heavy for me right now, but you hardy Mainers can handle it, and very well I might add.

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  2. It's amazing how beautiful such simple flies can be. Nice ties as always and thank you for your service....

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    1. Chris "Kiwi" Kuhlow
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      Chris bulk and flash are not necessary on these. They get it done.

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  3. Couldn't say it better than Chris.

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  4. Out here in Nor Cal we don't have a problem picking what fly to use in the Winter. The creeks are closed. Solves the problem.

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    1. Mark Kautz
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      Mark that's a shame. Some of my finest days have been in winter.

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  5. Alan
    What makes the soft hackles effective for me is the way I've fish all of them according to size and color. At times I fish the hackle as a dropper, floating under an indicator and last dead drifting. All methods have worked for me on the Sipsey and Caney. Thanks for sharing

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    1. Bill Trussell
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      Bill as you fish these flies more and more you'll find it is almost impossible to fish them wrong. In the water they're just like naturals.

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  6. Great flies Alan and some of my favorites! I have been using soft-hackles since the mid-70's and I now put a thorax on all of them - not sure if it makes a difference to the trout but it does to me. Good luck with them and of course send pictures!

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    1. MJpatbee
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      Pat for the longest time I preferred to fish them without a thorax. but I have learned to tie them with a sparse thorax. These flies worked very well yesterday as well as today.

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  7. My favorite soft hackle pattern is one I invented myself, which is very unusual for me since I much prefer legacy patterns from the past. I tie in pheasant tail, tail and body with fine gold wire wrap (segmentation), no thorax with two turns of golden plover hackle and black thread head with shiny uv resin. Always works for me.

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    1. John Dornik
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      John it sounds like a great pattern and you can document it's success. It pays to live on the "wild side" once in awhile and deviate from the norm.

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  8. Amen to what was said above. A hearty thanks to you for your service during the 60's, a dangerous time to be a young man in the armed forces.

    Love those soft hackles. Soft hackles are just about all I fished this season. I still have a good number of other types of flies that seemed good at the time to tie, but I seldom if ever fished them this year.

    Best Regards, Sam

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    1. Sam
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      Sam the soft-hackle is first fished most times for me. Like you I carry lots of flies and with the exception of the bomber the most used flies are soft-hackles.
      Fun to tie and fish.

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  9. Alan,
    Thanks for sharing these with us. I hope you had a great veterans day.
    JJ

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    1. Beaverdam
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      Joe it was a great one...fishing, and fishing, and remembering.

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  10. Alan,
    For your service in the military, we owe you a debt of gratitude that we cannot repay! A simple thank you will have to suffice for now! Indeed, THANK YOU Alan for a job well done!
    The patterns above are magnificent! I love the variety of classics that you have shown! There has been much written about thorax vs. no thorax. I generally include one on mine. As Pat mentioned above the fish don't seem to care but we do! If it is a confidence factor, then so be it! I don't know that I have ever been faced with the situation where fish will take a soft-hackle with a thorax and reject the one without and vice versa! Thankfully, this is not so!
    I tend to get out of hand with the amount of fur used for the thorax. I have to deliberately restrain myself so that just a mere sketch is used. Your patterns reflect this feature quite well!
    Dougsden

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    1. Dougsden
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      Doug as you and Pat have said a thorax is a part of the fly that is a personal choice. Although I have read that a thorax helps to prevent the hackle from collapsing and causing it to lay against the body. This may be true but as we know the hackle will respond to the current and move openly. My primary reason for using a thorax is it adds another form on subtle movement. I love squirrel as the material because of it's ability to add that little extra to an already deadly fly.

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  11. I love soft hackles. You post is right on the simpler they are the better. I'm tying them more often like that. Almost like zebra midges with hackle.

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    1. Feather Chucker
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      Simple, no clutter and lots of movement. Zebra midge with hackle, you got it.

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