good to the core

This soft hackle wet fly, utilises a golden-green hen hackle, a thorax of fine black dubbing and an abdomen of darker green-ribbed thread.

When creating this soft hackle wet fly pattern, I already had the colour of the hen hackle in mind; a beautiful and striking, golden-yellow-green coloured feather, which would be offset nicely with the dark wine coloured 8/0 tying thread I going to use. The thorax would be a simple one; just a touch of some fine black Hareline dubbing. The abdomen was created with some slightly thicker tying thread and his thread is a lovely shade of green, what some would perhaps call bottle-green or racing-green. In the previous post I mentioned that I sometimes rib the thread abdomen and body of my flies using a longer tag of the same thread, and that is what I did here; just leave a longer tag when attaching the thread to the shank of the hook and use the tag as you would a rib. With the thread being slightly thicker than 8/0 (I am unsure of what brand or thickness it is, perhaps somewhere around 6/0), it produced more of a bumpy, segmented effect than would be achieved using 8/0 thread.

Personally I haven’t come across them that often on the waters I fish, but looking at the finished fly, it may prove useful for when lime green buzzers are hatching. I find that varying shades of olive-green can be a very good colour to incorporate into a wet fly at times. The dark green thread abdomen of this soft hackle wet fly, should darken further when wet and it leads nicely into the slightly thicker and darker thorax area of the pattern. That dubbed thorax may also trap small bubbles of air, adding to the illusion that the pattern is a live insect, especially with the current or wave action animating the hackle fibres at the same time as it moves through the water.

The Green Apple Soft Hackle, a little play on words and a little fly I can’t wait to try out this coming season. And as always, tight lines everyone and thanks for reading!

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