LOCH FLIES

---

SOFT HACKLE

Over the last few years some of the best fishing I have had has been polaroiding to wild brown trout in the relatively clear waters of Lake Jindabyne. I find my self spending more and more time engaged in this "hunting" like pursuit. The more time I have spent watching the behaviour of fish when they see a fly the more I lean toward presenting smaller more delicate flies fished either static or very slow in order to entice a strike. I notice more often than not that when confronted with a small static fly that browns in particular either take the fly or if they don't take the fly they are not spooked and often will respond to the same or another small fly presented to them a few minutes later. The same can't be said when fishing larger flies. The fish either take the fly or more often than not take fright and spook off into the depths.  I have extended my belief in small flies to my loch style fishing and the following selection of soft hackle flies has developed from that experience. For polaroiding treat them and the leader so that they sink and allow them to sink naturally through the water column in sight of the fish. If using them as polaroiding flies you can either fish them static under a floating line on a longer leader or alternatively slowly retrieved on a sinking line. My four favorite soft hackle flies are tied in "iron blue" colours, "black & peacock" colours, "carrot" colours and "bibio" colours. I tie them all with the softest hackle I can find which is currently swamp hen or duck breast and always use seals fur or peacock herl for the bodies.

SOFT HACKLE IRON BLUE	SOFT HACKLE BLACK & PEACOCK	SOFT HACKLE CARROT	SOFT HACKLE BIBIO
MATERIALS: Hook - Size 12 to 14 Thread - Dark red Tail (optional) - grey Body - Grey/red/grey Rib - Fine copper wire Hackle - Swamp hen	MATERIALS: Hook - Size 10 to 14 Thread - Black Body - Peacock herl Rib - Fine copper wire Hackle - Duck breast or Swamp hen	MATERIALS: Hook - Size 12 to 14 Thread - Black Tail (optional) - yellow Body - Orange Rib - Fine silver wire Hackle - Duck breast or swamp hen	MATERIALS: Hook - Size 12 to 14 Thread - Black Body - Black/red Beard (optional) - Golden pheasant Rib - Flat silver tinsel Hackle - Duck breast or swamp hen

A) Wind the thread in touching turns to the bend of the hook. I like to use TMC 3769 hooks for this fly but any open gape dry fly or nymph hook will do. If the hook is mad with fine wire you should add 2 or 3 wraps of fine lead wire to the front half of the hook shank. Tie in a short tail if required. Tie in the ribbing material.
B) Dub an acorn shaped body on the rear 4/5 of the hook shank. Or, wind on a peacock herl body. If you are tying in a beard tie in 4 or 5 hackle fibres in front of the body with the tips extending just beyond the bend of the hook and partially obscuring the bite of the hook.
C) The picture above shows a strip of male Velcro. Brush the fly with the Velcro so as to lift out the tips of dubbing material.
D) Tie in a suitable soft hackle by the tip.
E) Wind on the hackle just once or twice in front of the body. Trim the butt end of the hackle off with a blade.
F) Pull the hackle backward with you finger tips and take a few wraps of thread over the leading edge of the hack so that it faces back.
G) Build up a neat head. Whip finish and varnish the head.