Al & Gretchen Beatty's Fly Tying Fridays
Al and Gretchen Beatty of BT's Fly Fishing are hosting Fly Tying Fridays-- a Zoom get-together to watch and learn some new fly tying techniques. These sessions will be held through March in into April. See BVFF calendar for these events.
This week we will share tips & tricks for tying soft-hackle wet flies. We’ll call this Zoom clinic, Soft-Hackles from A to Z. We’ll teach a couple of ways to “fold hackle,” tie small flies out of oversized feathers, and just for fun, we’ll tie them both backward AND forward.
If your partridge pelt runs out of the size of hackle you need long before you use up its feathers, THIS is the presentation for you! Yes, we’ll tie a couple of flies but the main focus will be tips on improving the appearance of YOUR soft-hackle patterns while getting the job done faster and easier while using materials you may not have considered before.
Materials Needed: Bird body feathers (partridge, chicken, pheasant, goose, turkey, duck, etc.) – any will do the job. NOTE: You don’t need all of those mentioned. We’ll use calf or bucktail on one of the patterns but a clump of the bird body feathers will be a good substitute if you don’t happen to have either type of hair. Of course, you’ll need thread, dubbing, peacock herl(black dubbing can be used instead), and hooks (we’ll use dry-fly or wet-fly size 10 for the demonstrations but #12 - #18 might be better for fishing flies.)
Standard Soft Hackle
Hook: Wet or dry, 1XL, size 18 – 8
Thread: Fire orange, red, or choice (6/0 – 70 denier)
Rib: Fine copper wire (optional)
Hackle collar: Folded partridge (or choice)
Abdomen: Orange (choice) Double Magic Dubbing (touch noodle dubbing)
Thorax: Orange (choice) Double Magic Dubbing (LaFontaine touch dubbing)
Head: Thread
Winged Soft Hackle (Trude by Al Beatty)
Hook: Wet or dry, 1XL, size 18 – 8
Thread: Black (6/0 – 70 denier)
Hackle: Grizzly, brown, or dun hen (tied backward)
Tail: Hackle fibers
Rib: Fine copper wire
Body: Peacock herl (optional dubbing of choice)
Wing: Calf, bucktail, or hackle fibers (color of choice)
Head: Thread
The presentation will be a standard Zoom meeting format and will also be streamed live on Facebook where its recording will remain for 1 week - our Facebook account is Gretchen-Al Beatty. Join us at 6:00 PM (MST) on Friday, 12Mar21. Please adjust for your time zone.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/98713996231
Meeting ID: 987 1399 6231
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Meeting ID: 987 1399 6231
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Tight Lines - Gretchen & Al Beatty
www.btsflyfishing.com
