{Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: Soft hackle challenge

Good articles there!  I used to over hackle them at first, but I've learned to purposely "waste" feather fibers for the sake of better flies ;).  You can take fewer turns, or strip one side of the feather -- both work.  

Often, you'll have game bird feathers which are too long for the "trout" size flies you may want to tie (e.g. 16s, 14s, etc.).  I've seen a few ways to resize larger feathers for smaller hook sizes (Craven shows one, and Hughes shows another in his book) but I like this method better than those:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-dfsN0ZPkc

One of the debates (for wrapping in the usual way) is whether to tie in by the tip (usually cut into a triangle), or via the stem.  Ivan showed a sort of variation on the tip method, by not cutting into a triangle and instead tying in the entire tip, then folding it back and putting more wraps on to fully secure it.  They all can work, but I'm getting to where i prefer the stem method at the front like Weilenmann shows here-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuK61AFV0NU

You kind of take your pick -- you either end up pulling the entire feather off the hook (tip method), or you simply lose your grip on the feather tip (stem method).  With the tip method, you get to use the stem as a "handle" but I'm getting more annoying with pulling out feathers over time.  It only happens once in a while, but it's still annoying.  

Of course, CDC collars work very, very well too -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvZb5R22nXU

Gene

On Sunday, January 24, 2016 at 12:15:27 AM UTC-5, Gs Feder wrote:

Found this 3-part series on soft hackles via The Fiberglass Manifesto:  http://theflyninja.com/blog.php

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