Iso soft hackle – currentseams.com

Last week I snuck out for a few hours on a local small stream. The water was medium-low, crystal clear, and the fact that the sun was out meant the locals were on high alert. Holy sandbars! The bottom structure of this stream had shifted quite a bit over the summer. In some sections, it felt like I was in brand new water. I fished a bushy dry (AFR Humpulator) and a BHPT dropper, and pricked four on the dry and two on the nymph. At the end, I switched to the Jiggy Squirmy Thingy and had a few small guys bull-rush the fly, but no char were brought to hand.

On Thursday, I guided Tim for a subsurface lesson. Like the small stream, the Farmington was low and clear, but plenty cold. We fished the mid and lower river sections. Mid-river was nymphing, and I was astonished that we didn’t even get a touch. What?!? We headed downstream to try our hand at wet flies, and we managed to stick three fish, although all of them became unbuttoned. Like many new to wet fly fishing, Tim needed to wait on the hookset after the hit. You feel the hit, and you want to set, but if you do, you’ll pull the hook right out of the fish’s mouth. You feel the strike, pause, asking, “Are you still there?” And if you do, the fish will always answer yes, having hooked himself neatly in the corner of his mouth. We will absolutely get them next time, Tim. A pleasure fishing with you, sir. Oh — we had hatches. Caddisflies and tiny BWOs and especially Isonychia. I love Isos.

If you own my book, *Fly Fishing Guide to the Farmington River*, then you’ve seen this photo. I love swinging wets for Isos, and I’ve done very well with my Iso Soft Hackle pattern.

Finally, all this rain. It really depends on where you live — we got pounded in Durham on Saturday, while the rain barely made a dent in the Farmington flows. Today, the storm is finally manifesting — the Unionville gauge has jumped from 230cfs to 540 — but I expect the river will clear up quickly.

What’s this? Two posts in one week? Yessir, campers! As promised, we are trying to return to a regular posting schedule on currentseams.com. I want to thank everyone for their patience and loyalty over the past year. Let’s get to it.

The Iso Soft Hackle is a wet fly I prototyped several years ago. Then, I test it on the river for months or years to prove its worthiness before I pass it along to you. This is an outstanding pattern (he said, modestly). The past two summers, it has accounted for some of my biggest trout taken on wet flies. It’s easy to tie, and the materials are readily available. Here’s the fly and the recipe as outlined by Tony Lolli in his outstanding Guide Flies column from On The Water. So what are you waiting for? Get to the vise. It’s Iso time!