 | B.Y.O.D. (Blend Your Own Dubbing) |  To make your own dubbing blends for the Double Soft-Hackle, start with a coarse, spiky fur like squirrel or hare's ear. Add some soft rabbit fur as a 'binder' and add flash. Here, I'm using gray squirrel, light tan rabbit, and Angel Hair ("Peacock"). |  Clip the squirrel hair from the hide and "fluff" it up into a pile. Do the same with the rabbit, about 1/3 as much. Cut strands of Angel Hair into one-inch sections, adding to the piles of fur. Mix and blend, adding more flash as desired. |  Store the dubbing blend in a small zip-lock bag and label it, including all the ingredients and approximate proportions so it can be reproduced. | | | Peter's other Invicta Flies contributions: ~Pop-Up Emerger ~Woodchuck Special |
| |  | - Hook: Tiemco 5262, or any standard nymph hook (2x long), #6-16
- Weight: lead wire
- Thread: 3/0 or 6/0, color to match or compliment
- Tail : partridge, or any soft, webby feather fibers to match overall color scheme
- Body: dubbing blend- hare's ear or squirrel or other, with flash (optional)
- Hackle: partridge & hen
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| Originated by Peter Frailey of Massachusetts. With one fly pattern, you can imitate many different nymphs like stoneflies, dragonflies, and many mayflies, as well as small minnows and even crayfish! The Double Soft-Hackle is an effective, simple fly with endless variations. Experiment with different feathers and dubbing blends (see sidebar below) for a variety of hatch-matching or attractor flies. Some variations are pictured at the bottom of the page. | | 
| Be sure to visit Peter's site, Fishing With Flies, for more patterns and stories. |
Peter writes... "When I tie this fly, I like to use a partridge feather for the first hackle to create a leggy appearance sweeping back over the body, with a shorter and usually darker second hackle (typically hen) in front. Furnace hen hackle makes a nice front soft-hackle, with it's darker center and lighter tips. A very buggy alternative to hare's ear dubbing is squirrel dubbing. I find the commercial squirrel dubbing blends to be more spiky than the hare's ear dubbing. A nice appearance can be created by using a lighter gray or tan dubbing for the rear two-thirds and a darker or black dubbing for the front one-third. If you like a bit of flash, try a few pieces of "ice dubbing" mixed in with the dubbing used to create the thorax or use the pre-mixed blend called "Krystal Dub." On streams for smallmouth bass or trout, I prefer a size 12. I like to cast upstream and dead-drift the fly, but also pick up fish by letting it swing after the drift. For warm water species I often use a size 8 or 10 and cast from my float tube to the edge of the Lilly pads. It is very effective if you let it sink a foot or two and twitch it a few times. Try landing it on top of a lily pad and gently pulling it off. This results in a softer landing and a more gentle and slower sinking nymph." |
Tying Instructions:| 1) Secure the hook in the vise. Select lead wire that is about the same diameter as the hook shank: .020 for #6-8, .015 for #10-12, .010 for #14-16. Wrap the lead 10 times around the shank just forward of center and clip. Secure the thread to the hook and cover the lead wire by making six to eight "passes" of the thread over it in spiral wraps, increasing the tension a little more on each pass. Bring the thread to the hook bend. Cover the wraps over the lead with cement. |  | | 2) Select a feather for the tail. Partridge is good, or any soft webby body feather. Here I'm using speckled hen back. When designing your own variations, other soft, webby feathers can be used, such as ringneck pheasant body feather, woodcock, chukar, hen, etc. To tie in the tail, we'll use Peter's "chevron" technique. Find where the fibers start to become 1/2 to 3/4 as long as the hook shank. Clip the tip out here and cut the remainder of the feather into sections of about 3mm, so there are five or six fibers on each side. These are the chevrons, and depending on the feather used should give you enough for tails on two, three, or more flies. You can also separate one chevron and leave it attached to the stem to help position the tail. |  | | 3) For smaller flies, one chevron will do. For larger flies and a bulkier tail, tie in two chevrons together, as I've done here. Hold the chevrons flat on top of the hook shank and take two wraps of thread. |  | | Now pull the feather forward through the wraps to make the tail the desired length, 1/2 to 3/4 hook shank. Take a few more tight wraps of thread forward to secure. Clip the excess close so you can use it on your next fly. |  | | This technique produces a unique effect with a slightly split tail and a nice flat profile that also shows off any color patterns in the tail. Fibers in the center of the tail are slightly longer than those on the sides, and the ease of the technique allows for consistency. |  | | 4) Dub the body up to about two hook-eye widths behind the eye, leaving enough room for the two hackles and head. The appearance should be full, yet "shaggy," so either dub it loosely, or brush it once the body is complete. *For details on making your own custom dubbing blends for the Double Soft-Hackle, see the sidebar at left. |  | | 5) Select a partridge feather with barbs near the middle about 3/4 the shank length (this first hackle should have most fibers that extend to somewhere between the hook point and bend). Tie this in by the tip. |  | | Take two turns of the hackle, and secure with three or four tight turns of thread. Clip the excess. (You might save this for the tail on your next fly.) For smaller flies, like #14-16, it may be easier to get barbs of a proper length by using a dubbing loop. For more info on this, see the articles Ruff Drummer and Dubbing Loop. |  | | 6) Select a hen feather (or other) with barbs about half the length of the partridge hackle. Tie this in and take a couple turns as you did for the partridge. Tie off and clip the excess. |  | | 7) Build up a smooth, rounded head, whip finish and clip the thread. Coat the wraps with cement. |  |
Below are a few other variations, including Peter's own flies. The End |
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