Tag Archives: best soft hackle flies

The Marlborough Fly Fishing Show is just two weeks away.

And I’m getting all fired up! It’s a busy show schedule for me this year, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Here are some details on what I’m doing. Finding Small Stream Nirvana is a new presentation; I’ve only done it once, at Edison last year during a blizzard to a small, dedicated audience. It covers the basics of small stream fishing, and goes into gear, tactics, and even how to find your own little slice of thin blue line heaven. My Featured Fly Tyer appearance, Presentation Flies For Striped Bass, will cover some basic patterns I use that create the illusion of life even when at rest. Sparse, impressionistic, and proven, every one of them. I’ll go into that topic in far great depth, including tactics and gear, at my seminar, Beyond Cast and Strip. I debuted that one last November at the International Fly Tying Symposium, and if you want to start catching more (and bigger) striped bass, this one is not to be missed. All of these are included with your show admission.

In Saturday’s class, Tying and Fishing Wet Flies, we’ll tie three basic patterns and talk about presentation and tactics. You must pre-register for this class, and you can do that HERE. If you want to become a dangerous wet fly machine, this is a great way to start. As is my 2pm talk, Modern Wet Fly Strategies, a deeper dive into the ancient and traditional art of catching dozens of fish.

Sunday’s 8:30am class, Presentation Flies for Striped Bass, also requires pre-registration, and you can do that HERE. We’re going to tie and talk and get you on the path to catching the stripers that everyone else can’t. We’ll wrap things up with Hot Bronze: Wade Fishing for Smallmouth. Pound-for-pound, smallmouth are among the most belligerent, obstreperous things that swim, and I’m beyond addicted to catching them.

When I’m not teaching (or sitting in on other’s talks) I’ll be walking the show floor. Please come say hello!

I’ll be appearing at The International Fly Tying Symposium, Nov 12-13, Somerset, NJ

I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be a featured speaker and instructor at this year’s International Fly Tying Symposium in Somerset, New Jersey! The dates are Saturday, November 12, and Sunday, November 13. My tentative schedule is: Seminar, Tying and Fishing Wet Flies, Saturday 10:30am; Tying Class, Tying Soft Hackles, Winged, and Wingless Wets, Saturday 1pm-3:30pm; Seminar, Beyond Cast and Strip: Presentation Flies for Striped Bass, Sunday 11am. The rest of the time I’ll be tying on the show floor. I believe the seminars are included in your admission price, and that you have to sign up for the tying class. I also want to emphasize that this is a preliminary schedule, and that the Symposium website should have more information up by October 1. Naturally, I’ll update you as things develop. Mark it down, and be there or be square!

It’s not just, “Which fly?” Presentation matters, and you’ll hear all about both from me at the International’s Fly Tying Symposium in November.

New seminar “Modern Wet Fly Strategies” debuts next Friday in Edison

I just finished rehearsing my new seminar, Modern Wet Fly Strategies. Folks, I’m really excited about this one! It’s almost entirely new material, with lots of new video. It’s a bit more fast-paced than previous presentations, and it represents my deepest dive yet into the ancient and traditional art of wet fly fishing.

“Modern Wet Fly Strategies” makes its debut next week at the Edison Fly Fishing Show, Friday, January 28, 4:30pm in the Catch Room. You’re coming, right?

Want more details? Here you go: Modern Wet Fly Strategies builds on the basics of Wet Flies 101 and expands on the tactics of Wet Flies 2.0. With new video and content, this is a more detailed program about wet flies and wet fly fishing. Topics include matching hatches, situational use of wet fly types, presentation options, gear, and the tactical use of wet flies under varying conditions and situations. A must for anyone who wants to improve his or her subsurface game!

Here’s a little sneak peak, part of a promo video I made for the Fly Fishing Show. Don’t forget, I’m also teaching a class on Saturday, January 29, at 2:00pm: Tying and Fishing Wet Flies with Steve Culton: Learn to tie and fish classic North Country spiders and other wet flies that trout can’t resist. The course also covers basics like leader construction, fly selection, where to fish wet flies, and how to fish them. Intermediate.  Click HERE for details and to register.

The best soft hackles and wet flies for fishing the Hendrickson hatch

“What are the best soft hackles (or wet flies) for fishing the Hendrickson hatch?” is one of those questions I get a lot this time of year. As always, the best flies are the ones in which you have the most confidence. I should also make this clarification: technically, with Hendricksons you’re fishing wet flies under the hatch. On the Farmington River, prime time for swinging Hendrickson wets is generally in the 11 am-to-3 pm window. Every day is different. Once you see duns on the water, and trout snapping at them, the wet fly game is all but over. But if you want to catch more trout, you should be swinging wets in this pre-hatch time frame. (Of course, you’re fishing a team of three wets. Here’s how to build a wet fly leader.) And so, in no particular order, these are some of my favorite Hendrickson wet fly and soft-hackled patterns.

Bead Head Soft-Hackled Dark Hendrickson
Dark Hendrickson winged wet
Hendrickson Spiders. Size 12, wet or dry fly hook, gray or rusty brown thread, tail material of your choice, a dusting of muskrat fur or dubbing, then brown partridge or dark dun hen hackle.
Bead Head Soft-Hackled Pheasant Tail
Old Blue Dun
Squirrel and Ginger. Yeah, I know. Not a Hendrickson pattern. But on the Farmington, we often get a strong caddis hatch around Hendrickson time. If you place this as your top dropper, you’ll be covered if the trout are selectively feeding on the caddis.

Thank you, Mid-Hudson Chapter of TU!

Many thanks to the members of the Mid-Hudson Chapter of TU for being my virtual hosts last night. The topic was one of my favorites, Wet Flies 101. We followed up with an excellent post-Zoom Q&A session. I was delighted to meet everyone, and I look forward to being able to do it person in the future! Hope to see some of you tonight for my Tuesday Night Currentseams Zoom, “Almost Anything Goes: Fly Fishing Q&A.”

The Hackled March Brown from one of Nemes’ books. Responsible for one of the biggest brown trout I’ve ever landed.
You can check out the fly-tying video here.

Last night’s Zoom, next week’s Zoom, and the inaugural Fly-Tying Zoom (Sat. Jan 16)

Thanks to everyone who joined me for last night’s Currentseams Tuesday Night Zoom. We had nearly 60 people, which doesn’t suck, and a splendid time was had by all. I’m sorry about the muting issues — I will have it figured out for next time. Speaking of next time, we’ll do it again next Tuesday, January 12. I’ll be talking about winter fly fishing, and winter fly tying — so be there or be square! I’ll post a reminder early next week.

As John Cleese would say, “And now for something completely different.” I’m going to do my first winter fly tying pay-per-Zoom event on Saturday, January 16 at 1pm. This will be about 90 minutes of fly tying/tie-along instruction. The cost is $10. To “register,” you send 10 bucks to me at PayPal (ID is swculton@yahoo.com) and I’ll send you the link to the meeting. Our first session will be Tying the Soft-Hackled Fly. This will cover some basic, useful patterns, and will include the North Country Spider template. It would be ideal if everyone had every kind of hackle, but I know that’s not possible, nor is it necessary. But you should have some basics, like different color threads, different hooks, tools, etc. You should have a partridge skin or at least partridge feathers. Starling would be good to have. If you have any kind of hen cape soft hackle, have that handy. The point is, if you don’t have a specific kind of hackle, you can find it later. This is all about tying basics and templates. Oh! I’d like to show you the Squirrel and Ginger, so please find ginger Angora goat, green Krystal flash, Squirrel fur, and high-tack wax. If you don’t have the goat, you can use another kind of dubbing. Wire can be substituted for Krystal Flash. Questions? You know where to find me.

By popular demand, fly tying classes by Zoom! The first will be two Saturdays from now, January 16th, 1pm, and the subject will be Tying The Soft-Hackled Fly. See above for materials list.

Farmington River Report 7/13/20: What hatch?

I guided Don yesterday for four hours mid-though-late afternoon. His goal was to work on wet fly fishing, and we had some great stretches of water to ourselves in and out of the Permanent TMA. Water was 225cfs, an excellent wet fly height, with a hint of stain, no doubt from storms upstream. Spot A produced two fish, a swing and a miss, and some finks that wouldn’t take. Spot B was a disappointing blank. Spot C held some players, and we had fun fooling them with the Hackled March Brown. While it was a very fishy feeling day, the hatches were terrible. I’m being generous by giving them a 1 on the 1-10 scale. Still, Don done good under some truly tough conditions. He’s going to be a dangerous wet fly machine.

Skunk’s off with this lovely rainbow. Check out that pink band! This fish was in great condition.

DonRainbow

Gotcha. I love these smaller wild Farmy browns. See you in a couple years, OK?

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You oughta be in pictures

Today’s my day in the limelight. Filmmaker Matthew Vinick is making a short feature on  fly fishing the Farmington River, and I’ve been asked to participate. I met Matt in the Permanent TMA during the Hendrickson hatch, and he was sufficiently impressed by my wet fly prowess to want to include me. While the focus is on Farmington hatches and dry fly fishing, my part will be largely wet fly fishing. So…everybody send positive hatch waves, please.

Smile! The camera’s on you, miss soft-hackle eating beastie.

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Farmington River Report 6/10/20: Verrry interesting…but not funny

Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, the game changes. Nature’ll do that to you. Yesterday was a perfect example.

We had a warm, humid day with stable flow conditions. The late afternoon/early evening  sulphur hatch was a shell of its Monday self — I’d give this one a 3/10 at best. Very few caddis, thousands of super small midges, and I saw one lonely Iso. Correspondingly, the wet fly action was slower. I landed only a half dozen trout on wets from 5:15pm-7:30pm, although I did have one hot stretch during a micro flurry where I scored trout on three consecutive casts. (Biggest fish, a hefty rainbow, came on the Magic Fly.) And there was the strange trout behavior: I had two incidences where the trout struck at the wet, but failed to grab it. This rarely happens when I fish the subsurface wet during the sulphur hatch. Certainly the feeding activity just wasn’t at the same level as Monday. Yet, that is.

Sidebar: I was also hampered by the fact that I couldn’t move around freely to prospect some prime feeding lanes. Crowding continues to be an issue on the Farmington. (I plan on addressing this problem in a future post.)

One sulphur pattern remained stable: the 7:00pm-7:30pm doldrum. Things picked up as the hour hand moved north, and around 8:00pm the switch was thrown. This hatch was easily a 9/10, with the air and water surface cluttered with size 16 yellow duns. By now I’d switched to dry fly, but I messed up. The hatch was so intense that the trout were gorging on the bugs with the same ferocity as shoppers racing for the hot new toy at Walmart on Black Friday. Usually, the transaction is a more patient process; the Magic Fly or the Usual serve the angler well when the sulphur emerger or cripple is the food. I missed ten minutes of trout dry fly fantasy camp before I realized they wanted the fly high and dry. Once I switched to Catskills Light Cahills, it was a trout on every cast.

Anglers of a certain age will reflect upon the title with a smile. At the time, I didn’t see the humor in the trout ignoring so many perfect presentations. But since I’m willing to learn, the joke ended up on them.

For years, I’ve been using classic Catskills dries like the Light Cahill with great success. I carry them in sizes 10-18. My SOP is fairly consistent: match the hatch size, then move to increasingly larger as the light begins to fade. This makes it easier for me to track the fly, and as the darkness grows the trout become less concerned with size matching. What’s more, if the menu changes to spinners, Catskills dries continue to be effective. Here’s a great tying tutorial from my friend Tim Flagler.

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“Wet Flies & Soft Hackles” class March 14: Special Offer!

Sal, the owner of Legends on the Farmington, has authorized me to make the following special offer to currentseams readers: you can now attend my Wet Flies & Soft Hackles class for one day only, Saturday, March 14, dinner included, for just $99!

If you want to catch more fish, you should be tying and fishing wet flies like the Squirrel and Ginger.

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What: “Wet Flies and Soft Hackles” is a tying and how-to fishing class. We’ll do plenty of tying (bring your vise, tools, and threads and I’ll supply the rest of the soft-hackled magic) and we’ll have a little classroom presentation/discussion here and there.

When: Saturday, March 14. Starts around 9am. Goes all day, then we enjoy a delicious dinner prepared by Sal.

Where: Legends on the Farmington, a gorgeous lodge on the banks of the river.

How: You cannot sign up/resgister through me or my website. Please contact Sal at legendsbnb@hotmail.com or visit their site at legendsbnb.com.

This class will sell out, so make haste. See you there!