Fishing soft hackle flies

I started my love affair with soft hackle flies many years ago after having read about them in English and even American books and magazines. I first tried a soft hackle fly on the Smalblaar River more than a decade ago. Quite frankly, I did not know how to fish a wet fly in the English manner and usually fished them in conjunction with a dry fly or with a nymph. I tied my first soft hackles using guinea fowl feathers  and using black rabbit dubbing as the body.

The fly was tied on a #16 hook and I fished it on a New Zealand rig just behind a parachute dry fly. It only took 2 drifts over a likely looking run before I connected with a 17 inch rainbow that latched onto the wet fly. What made this so amazing for me is that it had been a really tough day with very little trout showing and the ferocity with which the trout took the spider pattern blew me away. From that point on, when ever the fishing got really tough, I put on the soft hackle (usually black and #16) behind the dry fly and this tactic really saved the day for me many times, often resulting in some larger than average fish.

A few years later and I had brown, orange, red and black soft hackle flies in my box ranging from size 16 to #10. On the still water front, the soft hackle flies also saved the day for me. I fished at Bovlakte in Barrydale for a weekend and the fishing was really tough. I could see that the trout where head and tailing indicating that they where eating midge pupae. None of the conventional patterns that I was using where working. I changed to a black fritz in # 8 and caught 2 trout on that and then it went quite again. Then I hit on the bright idea; attach a #14 black soft hackle behind the fritz. After that, it was almost too easy, almost. (Can it ever bee too easy?)

After that I kept that little trick up my sleeve and it worked like a dream on midge eating trout. Several years later and I fished a water out near Stanford that had trout from 4 to 11 pounds in it and was having a very difficult time. I caught 2 fish on a big Mrs Simpson (there where lots of small bluegill in the lake) but then battled. After a while I changed to 4x tippet and tied on a black and then an orange soft hackle. I would cast out which a floating line and let the flies sink.  The spider patterns never reached the bottom and takes where signaled by a long slow pull as the trout confidently swam off with the fraudulent fly in their mouths. I caught 15 that day up to 9 pounds, mostly on the orange soft hackle in size 14.

I also fished soft hackles with other nymph patterns and they worked well for me in rivers and lakes.

In 2003 I fished with the Western Province fly fishing team at Ugie in the National Competition held there. To be quite honest, I had a lousy competition and it was the end of my competitive fly fishing career. I was so de-motivated and disappointed with my performance. It was then that it dawned on me that I fly fish for fun, not to prove anything (there are those that thrive on competition, and they make very good competitive fishers, I am not one of those people). However, during the competition, I met the Italian fly fishing Captain, Edwardo Ferera who was invited along by CPS member Korrie Broos. Italy is among the top 3 teams in the world and they have several medals and World champions to there credit. Edwardo (who has won his fair share of individual medals), taught us many things that trip, but definitely the defining moment for me was watching him fish a section of the river that he had just fished through half an hour ago demonstrating tactics to another team. He was using a telescopic rod that he could fish anywhere from 7 to 12 foot long just by adjusting the length of the forward sections. He started out Czech nymphing a deep run and hooked 2 fish, and then he moved up 5 meters and changed his rig to two soft hackle flies and said, “Ideal water for soft hackle”, and proceeded to hook and land a trout! Several fly and tactic changes later and he had fished through the run, about 100 meters where he must have hooked 15 trout through a section that he had already fished! I was amazed to see how gracefully and well such a large, portly man could fish. But when he came to Cape Town and announce that our streams where ideal for the soft hackle approach of which the Italians are amongst the worlds best proponents, I really took notice. (Recently when Czech nymphing originator Jiri Klima (Czech fly fishing Captain and known internationally as the River god) Came to Cape Town (also brought over by Korrie Broos), he said the same thing!)

Soft hackle patterns are usually fished two or three at a time on a 10 to 12 foot leader utilizing a fairly soft actioned 9 to 10 foot rod. The flies traditionally are cast across and down stream and then allowed to swing with the current, very importantly, the rod tip is held upright to cushion any takes. Fished this way these flies are deadly. However, this is not the only way to fish them. Over 150 years ago, an angler by the name of W.C. Steward wrote a book called the Practical angler. In it he talks about fishing soft hackle spiders upstream with a dead drift. Very short drifts where used with three flies on a cast.

I started to fish soft hackle flies “properly” for want of a better word, about 3 years ago usually on a 10 foot leader with 2 sometimes 3 at time. I fished them downs stream, down and across, dead drift across stream, upstream dead drift, upstream twitched, across stream dead drift, then twitched and then finally stripped back etc. I did not contain my methods to just one, but combined them as I needed. This just made sense to me. I suppose I have always been a “sneaky angler” but this for me is what fly fishing is all about, fooling the trout. If that means stripping a soft hackle fly through a run to entice a fish out of cover, then heck, Ill do it!

Most importantly, I started to catch fish, lots of fish and often good sized ones. Above all I learnt that no matter what technique you used with these flies, always keep the rod tip up! The more line that you can keep off the water, the better and when a trout eats one of the spider flies, it does it with the intention to kill it! Stabbing takes are the order of the day. If you keep the rod tip too low, you are in serious danger of being broken off.

When river fishing, I use a leader composed of 1 meter .40mm line (soft line like Arty superflex) to which I tie a loop. I then add 5x tippet to which I attach my droppers (also 5X tippet) using a 3 turn water knot. I keep my droppers 12 to 10 cm long. Total length of the leader is normally 10 foot long. I like using Rio powerflex tippet because it has excellent knot strength, good abrasion resistance and it is a supple line which is great for achieving drag free drifts.

I use a 7 foot 6 inch to 8 foot 6 inch long 3 weight rod for Cape Streams depending on how big the section of river is that I am fishing. Shorter rods give you better accuracy and are good in tight bush while longer rods allow you to keep more line off the water and help you to mend more line and keep more line off the water.

A longer rod is better for this technique, but I don’t always set out to just fish soft hackles. In a day I will often fish a dry fly upstream or down stream, fish a dry and a nymph, high stick nymph, fish two or three soft hackles, fish a streamer on its own or with a nymph or soft hackle behind it, fish two or three dry flies at once, fish a dry fly and ermerger at the same time or fish a soft hackle behind a dry fly. Versatility is the key word and it is one of the reasons why I often have a successful days fishing no matter what the conditions or water level.

The interesting thing about soft hackle patterns is the fact that they are in some instances over 300 years old. Old patterns include the snipe and purple (reputed to be one of the best), march brown, snipe bloa, partridge and orange, starling bloa, dark needle, black spider, dun spider, Greenwell’s spider, brown owl, water hen bloa and the hares ear (soft hackle version). There is a lot of theory and debate as to what these flies represent to the fish. Personally, having closely examined a lot of insects drifting along the stream, it becomes apparent that when an insect lands on the water, it is often a mess of legs and wings and insects like  the caddis as it comes up to hatch is perfectly matched by a soft hackle. In fact, the soft hackle can represent cadis, mayflies, midges, sunken terrestrial insects, water boatmen and just about any thing else depending on how and where they are fished. If you tie one on a size 8 hook with a brown body and use a brown mottled hen hackle, it could even represent dragonlies or damselflies if tied in olive. Give it a pearlescent body and red hen hackle, strip it fast and you have and excellent fleeing bait fish!

Another aspect of the soft hackle is the fact that it is so sparse and the hackle is so soft. What this means is that there is nothing to impede the hook on the strike. There is often no tail so if a trout takes it, you more often than not hook it solidly.

My favourite soft hackle flies are tied either with guinea fowl feathers or with hen hackle. What the soft hackle does when drifted or stripped through the water, is the hackle kicks enticingly which mimics a live insect. In fact, after watching many flies under water through the lens of my video cameras, I have noticed that a hen or any other soft hackle has the most noticeable and enticing kicking movement of all. This action is much better than rubber legs! The kicking motion also sends out sound waves underwater and is in turn picked up by the trout’s lateral line which essentially allows blind trout to eat insects off the top. In clear or dirty water, a soft hackle will draw fish from meters away, as I have seen from my observations time and time again.

As for colours, well I am in love with orange, black, red, brown and olive. I have also done well with yellow and recently purple and even pink bodied soft hackles.

Is colour important when fly fishing for trout? No it’s not important, its vital! From my findings using 3 soft hackles, each with a different colour, certain colour work better on different days. I have heard a lot of theories about colours and when they are suppose to work, personally, I just change them if they are not working until I find one that does work. I have fished to long to have noticed any particular pattern. Generally, I have caught most of my trout on black or orange soft hackles but maybe it’s just because I have most confidence in them? Why does bright pink work on wild trout, surely they don’t see anything like it in nature? Maybe that is why it works? Who knows, fact is, it does.




Now for the real reason that soft hackle flies are so deadly on Cape Streams or any freestone stream for that matter. Trout in shallow fast runs are spooky, because they have to be, they see dry flies drifted over them week in and week out, Adams, Adams parachute, klinkhammer, elk hair caddis, comparadun, spun dun, R.A.B., D.D.D. cdc patterns wielded by novices and international top fly fishers alike. A dry fly cast upstream into a run makes an audible plop when it hits the water and more often than not, it drags through the run a few times and this to a wild rainbow or brown may as well be pelican dive bombing it! Result, one very spooked trout. If you ordered a salad or a burger and your food started to wriggle on your plate, you would also be a little suspicious, more likely freaked out!  Also when you lift a dry fly out of the water prematurely you usually hear a very loud, plop! Now with a soft hackle, it makes very little noise when entering the water, it does not have to fish absolutely dead drift, twitching it can actually turn fish on! When you lift them out of the water the soft hackles fold flat and they come out of the water with no sound at all, if you fish two or three on a cast, you can cover several feeding lanes at the same time and a soft hackle drifted through a run just shouts EAT ME!

I have produced a DVD on fishing soft hackle flies and it will really teach you how to tie and fish these deadly patterns effectively.