Sat up listening to this… tied up these. Free Range Dubbing and Soft-Hackle equates to…deadly.

After sampling KBarton’s Free Range dubbing during the kick ass carp trip out west I knew I had to have some. No, I knew I needed it ALL. I don’t know where to begin, this stuff is awesome. Coming in every mind-blowing color of the fly tyer’s rainbow Singlebarbed has out done himself yet again. I say again because although I haven’t plugged the Sixth Finger yet you will notice my pair of those sexy blades showing up in many of my tying photo’s. If I’m tying they are on my hand, I wonder if I’ll ever really be able to go back. Back to the Free Range, with colors like Pea Green, Rust, Black Claret, Caddis Green, and Brown Mustard you can tell this was made by a tyer for tyers. The guard hairs, subtle flash and easy to dub mixture grabbed me right away. Montana was going to let some of his stash fly back to Minnesota with me but I said no, I just knew I would have to have the whole lot and after contacting Keith my white package arrived the other day.

The timing couldn’t have been better, I’d been checking the mail waiting for my stash to give me a reason to bust out the vise and get to work. I’ve been fishing a bit in my free time but haven’t had any reason to tie, simply put…my boxes are full and unless I’ve run out I can’t justify sitting inside tying when I could be out fishing or enjoying the fresh air Southeast Minnesota has to offer. With the arrival of my Free Range I had the motivator I was looking for to sit down and knock out a couple dozen. I picked a simple fly, something that wouldn’t detract from the Free Range, the Free Range Soft-Hackle is what I’m calling it. Just a dubbed body with a single wrap of Partridge for the collar. My gut tells me that I’ll take loads of trout with these flies. Thanks to John Montana I used a new technique to apply the dubbing that takes full advantage of all the subtleties of this stuff. This method involves a bit of wax, a touch of dubbing and sending my thread to the moon to achieve a nasty, buggy, trout turning body. I tied three dozen in six colors, thanks Keith for investing the time to make this awesome dubbing. This stuff will be put to good use in many future W.F.F. flies. If your looking for some hit Singlebarbed’s store and stock up and while your at it get those scissors, if you tie with blades in your hand you will love these and likely never go back.

Slide Show

Soft-Hackle Patterns:

The Partridge and Orange

The Wilted Spinach

I apologize for the quality on the videos, lack of time caused me to crank these out quickly once again, video can be difficult. Big ups to Wendy B. for the Wilted Spinach pattern. I plan on swinging the dozen I tied up this week soon.

“Worth noting that this is a variation on John Montana’s original Wilted Spinach. carponthefly.blogspot.com” -Wendy B.

I whipped this out quick while finishing the video for Fly Tying for S.E. MN Trout. I hope it better demonstrates how I attached the wire to the hook without thread. This is a different camera and I didn’t have much time to get comfortable so forgive the quality, I’m usually uptight about what I put the Winona Fly Factory name on and this is slightly more informal. Thanks to Sershen for the advice, and camera use. 

The S.H.assie:

S.H.assie Fly

The Soft-Hackle Brassie by The W.F.F.

 This is tied on a size 20 curved nymph hook. The body is made of Chartreuse Ultra Wire but my twist here is that it isn’t attached to the hook shank by the conventional means of tying it in with thread and then working the wire forward over the thread. Using this method would create a situation where the bulk of tying the wire in results in a bump or imperfection in the wrapping of the wire.

To avoid this try this on for size: Take the bare hook and a section of wire (start with 6in. at first to get the hang of it) and start wrapping it on the hook as tightly and evenly as possible making a perfect sectioned body. Use your fingernails to push forward the wire to compress the wraps together against the hook eye. Once the wraps are formed you should see two ends of wire sticking out with the body between, place this body on the shank where you want it, making sure to leave enough shank before the eye for the rest of the fly. Now, take a small, very small drop of Zap-A-Gap and cover the wire gluing the wire section to the hook, use a bodkin for this delicate application (remember this is a size 20) and try to ensure that the entire body section gets alittle glue. Let this dry for a few moments, just long enough to sip your coffee in the morning. To remove the tag ends, lightly bend back and forth pulling on the wire at the same time to cause it to break right at the hook, this is neater than having to cut the wire with scissors. After this the body should be formed and attached to the hook, start thread and in this case I used one Partridge soft-hackle feather and fly tying thread to form the rest of the fly. I’m going to use this technique to form slim bodies for midge larva as well. I’m confident that this will work for sizes 20-24.

I left the hi-res photo in so you can really zoom in and see how neatly the bodies are formed. I’m proud of these simple but excellent looking flies. I’m tooting my own horn on this one! Note: If I’m taking credit for this when I should be giving credit let me know so that I can do so, but I did develop this entirely on my own at my bench.

Wendy, I’ve been focusing on you these last few days of tying thinking about those really tiny soft-hackles you tied. I thought I would give something similar a go. I found some excellent feathers for over 2 dozen flies on just one wing of the Partridge that I recently received as a gift from the game farm and the hunting dogs. I tied these in size 18 and 20 and I for some reason only added the flash tails to the size 20. Oops.  I used a green ice dub for the thorax and I really like how these turned out. Thanks Wendy for the ideas. I’m including a picture of the materials needed for these flies and I had to laugh at how little materials are needed. Note: the “sparse” amount of ice dub. 

I’m just throwing this one out there for anyone thinking about getting a dog and happens to tie flies, get a German Shorthair. Liz and I started dating almost two years ago and right from the start she informed me that we (if we were to be) were going to have to live with the puppy she had coming once it was of age. I thought little of it at first and then she arrived, we named her Lily and I had no idea what I was in for. Honestly, I never thought I would like a dog let alone love one so much. She chewed through shoes, dug through the trash and went on the floor just like any other dog but for a hunting dog this ones the way to go. She is very loyal, smart as a whip, loving, fast and good for hunting pheasant.  Which if you tie flies and want to hunt pheasant this is an obvious match. Note: I’m not big on guns but Liz’s father and brothers have been hunting for years and as such there are three German Shorthair’s in the family. Abby, Bailey and Lily comprise the hunting trio. 

Abby is Liz’s fathers dog and Bailey is her brother’s. Bailey stays with us frequently and is Lily’s best friend. Unfortunately, Lily broke her leg a few months back and has been out of commission for anything other than leash walks. She shattered her back right leg jumping for a Frisbee and had to have surgery for an orthopedic bone plate to be installed. She is limping and walking now and could be back to normal by next spring if we are lucky. She won’t be playing with me in the snow this winter. 

This post was spurred by the fact that the guys took the dogs to the game farm and got quite a few pheasants and even one partridge which I have been looking to get my hands on for some soft hackle feathers. In great style the dogs and guys came back with quite a few which gave me the opportunity to learn how to clean a bird, and to fully skin and cure what is left. We skinned the partridge and took Borax (from the grocery store) and covered the skin side face up and any thing left on the pheasant tails as well. This should make for good fly tying.

So if your so inclined and need a companion I recommend a German Shorthair, alittle on the hyper side but very friendly, loving, protective and good at finding birds with feathers for your flies.

The Winona Fly Factory has been hard at work tying new and different flies for next season and this winter. Working on dry fly midges, white caddis, midge larva, deer emergers, ect. I will be posting those in the W.F.F. Flies page. This makes my winter tying total up to 18 dozen finished. 

I wanted to play with soft hackles but I don’t have much in the way for stores to buy materials and they are costly but I do happen to have a dog that pheasant hunts and I used feathers from a pheasant half to tie different soft hackle patterns based on the information I’ve been reading at Whiskey Creek’s site (link below). As a result of my interest in playing I tied a few different flies that I have attempted to name and will try next season to see if any will catch a trout. We shall see, but fun to experiment! Name suggestions welcome, I don’t know if I like the ones I have. 

I would like to note that the two streamer patterns are tied like salmon flies in that they are not much wider than the hook even with the feathers on top unlike the middle one which requires a front view to explain it a bit more. 

Check the W.F.F. Page for images of the other new flies. Recipie requests are welcome always, leave a comment and I would be happy to give any information I can.