Beginner’s Fly Tying: Soft Hackle Wet Flies

Our PVFF Beginner Fly Tying program for February 2023 will reintroduce basic steps for ‘tying soft hackle wet flies’. For those unfamiliar with the term ‘wet flies’, these are artificial flies tied to represent the immature form of several of the major classes of fresh water ‘invertebrate’ insects; e.g. mayflies, caddisflies, and stoneflies. Traditionally, the wing materials of a ‘wet fly’ came from wing feathers of a chicken, turkey, goose, etc. And while these feathers closely imitated the immature wings (or wing casing) of an aquatic insect, the resultant fly pattern was often described as stoic (i.e. lacking life-like qualities).