How to utilize long feathers for soft hackle flies

[afishinado]

There usually aren't very many short feathers on your partridge cape to tie soft hackles. There's a few ways to be able to use these feathers that are too long. I find this method the easiest one to do the job >

 

[Maurice]

Great idea.

 

[PennKev]

I saw that a while back and felt so stupid afterwards.

 

[redietz]

That method works great for feathers that aren't too over-sized, and for dubbed bodies which will cover up the lump created. I use it regularly for, say flymphs down to size 16.

For small flies or when I want to keep the body slim (e.g. size 20 pheasant tails) I have to go to one of the other methods. Here's the one I use the most:

Use oversized hackle for small flies

There's no feather too big to be used as a soft hackle.

 

[afishinado]

redietz wrote:
That method works great for feathers that aren't too over-sized, and for dubbed bodies which will cover up the lump created. I use it regularly for, say flymphs down to size 16.

For small flies or when I want to keep the body slim (e.g. size 20 pheasant tails) I have to go to one of the other methods. Here's the one I use the most:

Use oversized hackle for small flies

There's no feather too big to be used as a soft hackle.

I too use both methods for tying SH's with partridge feathers that are oversized.

 

[Steeltrap]

DOH!!

 

[tomgamber]

being a terrible wrapper, learning on my own and using sub par materials, this is how I have always done any kind of hackle collar. I assumed it was cheating and there was a different, right way to to do it.