Orange and Partridge Soft Hackle
Fly of the Month 03.23 Orange Partridge Soft Hackle
The “fly of the month” series for 2023 will celebrate the Fly Fishers International Fly Tying Group Fly Tying Skills Awards Program. Each month Tom and I will present one of the fly patterns used to evaluate a fly tyer’s skills toward a Bronze Level in the first six months, then one of the fly pattern used to evaluate a fly tyer’s skills toward a Silver Level in the later part of the year. The third fly pattern in the Bronze Level series is a wet fly, a soft hackle fly. A soft hackle is easy to tie and anglers use them occasionally. However, during the age of wet flies, soft hackle was highly utilized.
Orange Partridge Soft Hackle
The Soft Hackle fly pattern is not only easy to fish, but it’s also easy to tie. The soft hackle is a wet fly intended to imitate a rising nymph or pupa stage of an aquatic insect. The partridge collar evokes a range of insect anatomy, from the shedding shuck of a mayfly to the sprawling legs and antennae of caddisflies.
The basic way to fish a soft hackle fly is to swing it across the currents to give it that upward movement trout. Swing it through deep runs and bounce over shallow riffles, or tie it behind a dry fly, letting the tandem rig tighten and swing as it completes a drift. When trout take the trailing soft hackle, strikes are often aggressive. Be ready.
“Traditionally fished in the down-and-across presentation common to wet flies, the natural materials of a soft hackle fly impart dramatic and lifelike motion in river currents, resembling mayflies and caddisflies in various life stages. But this method is only a starting point. With a handful of soft hackles and a little creativity, an enterprising fly angler can successfully imitate the entire menu available in a trout stream, from microscopic midges to darting baitfish. For example, soft hackles can be swung through a run to mimic an emerging insect rising in the water column, dead-drifted in a tandem nymph rig, weighted and stripped like a streamer, or greased up with a bit of floatant and fished in the surface film to fool selective rising fish—which is a great tactic if you’re struggling to accurately cast tiny flies to educated fish.
The greatest attribute of the soft hackle, however, is how forgiving they can be when your approach doesn’t go as planned. Execute a late mend and ruin your drag-free drift? No problem. Just let the fly swing through the tail of the run and watch a fish hammer it. Deliver a sloppy cast with too much slack to swing? Let the soft hackle sink lazily in the water column, resembling a drowned grasshopper. This is the true genius of the soft hackle: no matter how you fish them, you’re almost always fishing them well. All that said, the utility of the soft hackled fly is still somehow often overlooked. ” - Field & Stream website
One of the first flies ever documented, the Partridge and Orange makes an appearance in Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler and remains a standby pattern today. The Partridge and Orange has an orange body with brown hackle and is very similar to the Orange Partridge Soft Hackle. Other modern soft hackled fly patterns include: the [Gold] Beadhead Soft Hackle Pheasant Tail, Craven’s Soft Hackle Emerger, the Gartside Sparrow, Sowbug Soft Hackle (the bright orange beadhead acts as a hot spot) and the Holy Grail Caddis Emerger (a favorite among Western fishing guides).
Tying the fly pattern for the Bronze Level Submission
Visit the FFI website and navigate to the Fly Tying Group, then to the Bronze Award Handbook pages. The website has excellent instructions as to how to tie and submit the required group of fly patterns to an FFI Bronze Award Evaluator. The website includes a video presenting each step to tie the Orange Partridge Soft Hackle. The handbook is easy to understand and follow. Tie three flies with consistency for the Bronze Awards submission, then tie more for the fly box.
Fly of the Month 03.23
Orange Partridge Soft Hackle
Hook: #10 Wet fly hook
Thread: 8/0 Orange Uni-thread or equivalent
Rib: Fine gold colored wire
Body: Orange floss
Thorax: Hare’s mask fur or Hare’s Ear Plus
(tan to brownish tones)
Hackle: Gray Partridge
Head: Whip-finish and head cement
Note: Typical hooks used are fine wire dry hooks for fishing in the film or slightly below. Stout hooks can be used for fishing deeper and or faster waters. There are several styles of soft hackled flies. This example, this fly pattern falls into the thin body, sparsely hackled style. The effect in this pattern is a thin slightly tapered body. The goal for the thorax is to form a loosely dubbed knot of fur, the purpose of which is to form a support to keep the soft hackles from collapsing along the hook shank (appearing like an air bubble of a rising nymph or pupa).
Directions:
1) Attach the thread about a half eye length behind the eye and lay a small base about 5 wraps long down the shank.
2) Select and prepare the partridge hackle by stroking the fibers so they stand out perpendicular from the stem. The length of the fibers should be a length that will allow the tips to extend slightly beyond the bend of the hook. Hold the feathers with the concave side away from the hook and the stem parallel to the hook shank. Strip off the fibers from the top side of the stem to the left of the tip section. Hold the feather against the hook shank to locate where the end of the thorax section will be located. Use you finger nail to press the bare part of the feather stem against your thumb pad and pull the feather to flatten the stem.
3) Trim the stem waste. Attach the wire rib where you cut off the stem waste. Take the thread to the bend of the hook.
4) Return the thread to the thorax starting position.
5) Attach the orange (floss) silk body material with a few turns of the thread.
6) Wrap the body silk back to the rear using edge-to-edge wraps and then bring the silk forward using slightly overlapping turns to produce a slight taper to the body. Tie off the silk body material at the thorax position and cut off the waste.
7) Wrap the wire rib forward forming 4 or 5 ribs. Tie off the wire at the body tie off position. Wiggle the wire back and forth or use the helicopter method of breaking off the wire waste.
8) Apply dubbing wax and spin some dubbing material onto the tying thread. Form a loosely dubbed knot of fur to form a thorax.
9) Wrap the dubbing to form a loosely dubbed knot of fur. End the dubbing where the fibers start on the hackle stem. Wrap the thread in front of the hackle and let the thread hand just behind the hook eye.
10) Wrap the hackle without overlapping the stem. Make only 2 to 2 1/2 turns of hackle. Keep it sparse for this fly pattern. Try to get the fibers to wrap so they are perpendicular to the shank with the tips leaning backwards slightly. Tie off the tip of the hackle with a few turns.
11) Trim the waste, form a head with a few more turns, and apply several turns to whip-finish. Trim the waste and apply head Cement.
- Tom Adams, Alen Baker
The “fly of the month” series for 2023 will celebrate the Fly Fishers International Fly Tying Group Fly Tying Skills Awards Program. Each month Tom and I will present one of the fly patterns used to evaluate a fly tyer’s skills toward a Bronze Level in the first six months, then one of the fly pattern used to evaluate a fly tyer’s skills toward a Silver Level in the later part of the year. The third fly pattern in the Bronze Level series is a wet fly, a soft hackle fly. A soft hackle is easy to tie and anglers use them occasionally. However, during the age of wet flies, soft hackle was highly utilized.
Orange Partridge Soft Hackle
The Soft Hackle fly pattern is not only easy to fish, but it’s also easy to tie. The soft hackle is a wet fly intended to imitate a rising nymph or pupa stage of an aquatic insect. The partridge collar evokes a range of insect anatomy, from the shedding shuck of a mayfly to the sprawling legs and antennae of caddisflies.
The basic way to fish a soft hackle fly is to swing it across the currents to give it that upward movement trout. Swing it through deep runs and bounce over shallow riffles, or tie it behind a dry fly, letting the tandem rig tighten and swing as it completes a drift. When trout take the trailing soft hackle, strikes are often aggressive. Be ready.
“Traditionally fished in the down-and-across presentation common to wet flies, the natural materials of a soft hackle fly impart dramatic and lifelike motion in river currents, resembling mayflies and caddisflies in various life stages. But this method is only a starting point. With a handful of soft hackles and a little creativity, an enterprising fly angler can successfully imitate the entire menu available in a trout stream, from microscopic midges to darting baitfish. For example, soft hackles can be swung through a run to mimic an emerging insect rising in the water column, dead-drifted in a tandem nymph rig, weighted and stripped like a streamer, or greased up with a bit of floatant and fished in the surface film to fool selective rising fish—which is a great tactic if you’re struggling to accurately cast tiny flies to educated fish.
The greatest attribute of the soft hackle, however, is how forgiving they can be when your approach doesn’t go as planned. Execute a late mend and ruin your drag-free drift? No problem. Just let the fly swing through the tail of the run and watch a fish hammer it. Deliver a sloppy cast with too much slack to swing? Let the soft hackle sink lazily in the water column, resembling a drowned grasshopper. This is the true genius of the soft hackle: no matter how you fish them, you’re almost always fishing them well. All that said, the utility of the soft hackled fly is still somehow often overlooked. ” - Field & Stream website
One of the first flies ever documented, the Partridge and Orange makes an appearance in Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler and remains a standby pattern today. The Partridge and Orange has an orange body with brown hackle and is very similar to the Orange Partridge Soft Hackle. Other modern soft hackled fly patterns include: the [Gold] Beadhead Soft Hackle Pheasant Tail, Craven’s Soft Hackle Emerger, the Gartside Sparrow, Sowbug Soft Hackle (the bright orange beadhead acts as a hot spot) and the Holy Grail Caddis Emerger (a favorite among Western fishing guides).
Tying the fly pattern for the Bronze Level Submission
Visit the FFI website and navigate to the Fly Tying Group, then to the Bronze Award Handbook pages. The website has excellent instructions as to how to tie and submit the required group of fly patterns to an FFI Bronze Award Evaluator. The website includes a video presenting each step to tie the Orange Partridge Soft Hackle. The handbook is easy to understand and follow. Tie three flies with consistency for the Bronze Awards submission, then tie more for the fly box.
Fly of the Month 03.23
Orange Partridge Soft Hackle
Hook: #10 Wet fly hook
Thread: 8/0 Orange Uni-thread or equivalent
Rib: Fine gold colored wire
Body: Orange floss
Thorax: Hare’s mask fur or Hare’s Ear Plus
(tan to brownish tones)
Hackle: Gray Partridge
Head: Whip-finish and head cement
Note: Typical hooks used are fine wire dry hooks for fishing in the film or slightly below. Stout hooks can be used for fishing deeper and or faster waters. There are several styles of soft hackled flies. This example, this fly pattern falls into the thin body, sparsely hackled style. The effect in this pattern is a thin slightly tapered body. The goal for the thorax is to form a loosely dubbed knot of fur, the purpose of which is to form a support to keep the soft hackles from collapsing along the hook shank (appearing like an air bubble of a rising nymph or pupa).
Directions:
1) Attach the thread about a half eye length behind the eye and lay a small base about 5 wraps long down the shank.
2) Select and prepare the partridge hackle by stroking the fibers so they stand out perpendicular from the stem. The length of the fibers should be a length that will allow the tips to extend slightly beyond the bend of the hook. Hold the feathers with the concave side away from the hook and the stem parallel to the hook shank. Strip off the fibers from the top side of the stem to the left of the tip section. Hold the feather against the hook shank to locate where the end of the thorax section will be located. Use you finger nail to press the bare part of the feather stem against your thumb pad and pull the feather to flatten the stem.
3) Trim the stem waste. Attach the wire rib where you cut off the stem waste. Take the thread to the bend of the hook.
4) Return the thread to the thorax starting position.
5) Attach the orange (floss) silk body material with a few turns of the thread.
6) Wrap the body silk back to the rear using edge-to-edge wraps and then bring the silk forward using slightly overlapping turns to produce a slight taper to the body. Tie off the silk body material at the thorax position and cut off the waste.
7) Wrap the wire rib forward forming 4 or 5 ribs. Tie off the wire at the body tie off position. Wiggle the wire back and forth or use the helicopter method of breaking off the wire waste.
8) Apply dubbing wax and spin some dubbing material onto the tying thread. Form a loosely dubbed knot of fur to form a thorax.
9) Wrap the dubbing to form a loosely dubbed knot of fur. End the dubbing where the fibers start on the hackle stem. Wrap the thread in front of the hackle and let the thread hand just behind the hook eye.
10) Wrap the hackle without overlapping the stem. Make only 2 to 2 1/2 turns of hackle. Keep it sparse for this fly pattern. Try to get the fibers to wrap so they are perpendicular to the shank with the tips leaning backwards slightly. Tie off the tip of the hackle with a few turns.
11) Trim the waste, form a head with a few more turns, and apply several turns to whip-finish. Trim the waste and apply head Cement.
- Tom Adams, Alen Baker