Copper Soft Hackle

I wanted to go to the stream after work today, but anyone anywhere near Northwest Arkansas knows how the weather turned out. So instead, I'm making my first post to this blog.

This is the first fly I try when I get to a trout stream. I would say I invented it, but it's so simple and obvious that I'm sure many others before me have already staked that claim. Just two materials, copper wire of any color (small), and a soft hackle. The best would be a grouse feather, but I use pheasant because, well, that's what I have a lot of right now. I really only carry it in a #14-#16. This one is tied on a Dai-Riki #305 hook, but any short wire hook will do. For standard short wire hooks I only buy light wire hooks, because I'm cheap and poor. I figure it's easier to sink a fly that is too light than to float one that is too heavy.

I like this fly verses other soft hackles because of the body. The copper wire is the least bulky way and fastest way to make a body that I have seen, and I like the sparseness of it. Plus, it makes a tight, segmented body every time.

Start the thread JUST before the eye of the hook, not the middle. Tie in the wire, wrapping BACK OVER the thread start.

Begin wrapping the copper back to the bend of the hook, making sure to keep the wraps tight.

When you've wrapped to just before the bend of the hook, tighten the wire and start turning in a circular motion. The heat created by the friction will break the wire perfectly. You won't even be able to see where the wire ends as you would if you had cut it.

Back at the head of the fly, trip the fibers off the base of your hackle feather and tie it in. Of course, you can tie it in palmer style (upside down), but I don't think this makes a difference since you are only going to make a couple wraps. I think it's easier to do the hackle in the conventional manner. I do tie streamers that require a hackle through the length of the body (like a Wooley Bugger) palmer style, because it is important in defining the taper of the fly. I don't think that is the case here.

Wrap the thread back when you make the head of the fly to push the hackle fibers back (but don't overdo it). Whip finish and cement both the head and the wire body.

I love this fly because I love swinging soft hackles. I think I do it differently (read:wrong). I do the standard dead drift on a long line, casting upstream and mending through the drift, like you would any other nymph, and I catch fish that way. The difference between this or any soft hackle and a nymph is that, at the end, you can follow the drift on a tight line downstream, raising the rod slowly. You'll often catch fish on this phase of the drift.