Why Tie with Soft Hackles? No Trout on Earth can Refuse a Soft-Hackle Pattern.

What's a Soft Hackle when it comes to Tying Flies?

The term “soft-hackle” refers to a category of flies that has an extensive history in fly fishing. And, most importantly, these flies are incredibly productive in the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, which means you are missing out if you don’t carry a heavy supply of these patterns whenever and wherever your fish.

These patterns are so effective, in fact, that Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia, only fished a soft-hackle (the Pheasant Tail and Partridge), and no other flies, for a full year. He took bonefish, Atlantic salmon, British Columbia steelhead, and trout on it, in different sizes and colors of course.

Gaylen Mercer on Why you should Fish Soft Hackle Patterns

Another proponent of soft-hackles is the landscape and sporting artist Gaylen Mercer. Mercer credits the soft-hackles’ simplicity as its appeal and said so in an article for the now defunct Fly Rod & Reel magazine. He penned, “Every angler has experienced a miracle fly, one that takes fish almost magically. With every success, said imitation sheds bits and pieces, losing form and identity, while its effectiveness often increases apace. In naked fact, it’s just another soft-hackle.

“Such dissolution marks a process by which all non-essential aspects of a fly are winnowed away . . . .” Mercer wrote. “Such rendered patterns best get what fish truly want . . . the idea of the helpless, hence sure, meal.”

Whether you're swinging for steelhead or trout—with lighter switch rods, or even single-handers—the evening hours, when caddis are active, are often most productive. Stay late and you're sure to get some action on a variety of these wet flies.

The Soft Hackle Variance and Best Practices for Tying

To me, a soft-hackle is more or less just a “wet fly.” It can be tied in many colors and sizes to cover a variety of situations, just as Chouinard and others have proven.

The way a soft-hackle is tied is simple; some sort of dubbed body, with floss, tinsel or wire wound around it for durability, and then a hackle tied to the head of the fly, just behind the eye, palmered style. It’s that hackle, soft and webby, that allows the fly to do its thing. This feather often comes from a Hungarian partridge, a forest grouse, a starling, or from a pheasant’s rump.

What’s important is that the hackle is soft and webby, which allows the fly to break the surfacefilm and sink slightly. Why is that important, you ask? Well, think “emergers.” That’s why. Emergers are a mainstay of a trout’s spring, summer and fall diet and all the major bugs—the PMDs, PED’s, green drakes, brown drakes, Callibaetis, Hecuba, Baetis, and myriad caddis—go through this most vulnerable stage. The “emergence” refers to when these bugs swim from the bottom of a river or lake to the surface and attempt to break free from their nymphal shucks. Some perform this task quickly and fly away for romance; many others struggle mightily and the trout take advantage of those easy meals. That’s what a soft-hackle imitates—an emerger swimming toward the surface, or a cripple in the surface film, or just under it, trying to survive.

Double up on Soft Hackle Flies for Double the Fun

Soft-hackles are definitely one of my favorite flies to fish. I wouldn't be caught dead without them on any of our local waters. You can fish them in a variety of ways, quartering downstream and behind a dry fly as a dropper, nymphed under an indicator, and even stripped like a mini-streamer. I like to tie two soft-hackles, back-to-back, and strip them in foamlines, pools and backeddies. I also fish soft-hackles on lakes for trout that are sipping flies off the surface.

You can order this fly here.

Caddis Hatch and the Soft Hackle Advantage when Matching Bugs

But, the way that I fish them most often is just before and during a solid caddis hatch. I usually position myself upstream of my targets and cast across and downstream so the fly quarters and swings just in front of a trout’s nose. Sometimes I’ll add a little twitch or strip by slightly lifting the rod tip. Quite often this draws an aggressive take, very similar to a streamer-grab. So I usually fish a rather heavy tippet, as large as I can get through the eye of the hook. In regards to wary, leader-shy fish, I haven’t found that tippet size matters. Why? First, the fish sees the fly first. And, second, caddis often hatch in the evenings when the leader and tippet isn’t highly visible anyway.

If I were to pick one style of soft-hackle to fish all the time, I’d go with the Pheasant Tail soft-hackle. I’d tie it on a short-shank hook in sizes as large as #8 and all the way down to #22 to match Tricos and blue-wing olives.

That said, I have PMD-specific soft hackles, October caddis soft-hackles, and BWO soft-hackles, all tied in a variety of sizes. Sometimes I run these flies behind a mayfly dun so the fish have two options. Sometimes I’ll tie one on behind my favorite beadhead pattern and dead-drift it. At the end of the drift I’ll swing it across the run.

Honestly, swinging soft-hackles, especially during a caddis hatch, is one of the most entertaining, easy (think kids and beginners), and productive methods you can use to catch western trout. So, before you hit the water this late summer and fall, make sure to tie a few or stop in at North 40 and we’ll set you up with a few productive patterns and show you how to fish them. You won’t be disappointed.

Check out our selection of tying materials here and come up with your own soft-hackle pattern.