Simple Soft‑Hackle Flies: Mastering the Pheasant Tail Flymph

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Excerpted from Pheasant Tail Simplicity: Recipes and Techniques for Successful Fly Fishing. Reprinted with permission by Patagonia.

This article was originally title “Pheasant Tail Soft Hackles” in the Oct-Dec 2025 issue of Fly Fisherman.

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What we have learned from years of fishing with long, flexible Tenkara rods, and with some minor modifications to the flies, is a method that is one of the most effective ways to catch fish. It is especially well suited to the beginner fly angler. We described this method in our book Simple Fly Fishing. But since our goal here is to keep the flies simple and allow us to focus on our skills, let’s take it to the next level.

Soft-hackle wet flies—or spiders, as they’re called in the United Kingdom—are among the oldest artificial flies, going back to at least the sixteenth century. They are elegant, use natural materials, and are simple to tie. They continue to fool fish today—oftentimes even better than the latest synthetic-material flies that populate modern fly-shop bins.

After reading the books of the Montana angler Sylvester Nemes, I started fishing soft hackles. The flies appealed to me because of their simplicity and versatility. I started with two flies on my leader. Each one was a different size and color. I soon found that the Pheasant Tail and Partridge fly was outfishing all other versions and colors of the soft hackle.

So, I thought, why not just stick with what works? Simple. I believe “he who dies with the least toys wins.” By changing only the size and weight of the Pheasant Tail, I found that it imitates every stage of the mayfly, caddis, or stonefly. It’s even the best bonefish fly I use.

In 2015, I fished in Europe, North and South America, and the Caribbean using only one type of fly—the Pheasant Tail and Partridge. I caught trout, grayling, salmon, steelhead, bonefish, and various other saltwater fish in numbers that exceeded what I’d done in other years. The most important lesson of this experiment is that without the distraction of changing fly patterns, I was free to focus on technique, depth, reading the water, and understanding what the fish were doing at any given time. Too often we anglers blame fly selection for the poor fishing when the truth is we are clueless about what is going on around us. It all starts with observation and technique.

Let’s dig into the flies themselves, the techniques for fishing them, and some of the more unusual applications where they’ve been successful.

The two long, center tail feathers are best to use when tying dry, wet, and nymph fly patterns. Each barb fiber from the stem (rachis) of these feathers is made up of tiny interlocking, frilly barbules that, when wrapped as fly bodies, create lifelike representations of trout-stream aquatic insects.

When you’re tying dry flies, the frilly barbules readily accept dry-fly floatant, whether paste or liquid, so the fly floats like a cork when treated. After being taken by a fish or two, the fly can be renewed to float by dusting it with a dry-fly powder. If not treated with a floatant, these same barbules will absorb water and sink when used to tie wet flies and nymphs.

Simply stripping off, or clipping, the desired barbs from the stem and tying in with the thinner tips closest to the back of the fly will naturally create the proper taper and proportion of a natural insect. A general guide is to use four to eight barbs for fly bodies sizes 8 to 12, three or four barbs for sizes 14 to 16, and one or two barbs for sizes 20 and smaller. This is a general guide, as tail fibers vary from bird to bird, so the number of barbs and frilly fibers can vary as well. Don’t be afraid to use more or fewer barbs to achieve the proper proportions for your flies.

For tying proper soft-hackle flies, we recommend investing in an entire wild Hungarian partridge skin. You can expect to tie hundreds of flies from a single wild bird skin. We do not recommend buying a game-farm bird or purchasing a package of feathers. You will discover that domestic, pen-raised birds, and most feathers stuffed into plastic bags, offer only damaged, broken, and pecked fibers that render most feathers unusable. Pen-raised, tame Hungarian partridges, usually crammed into tiny quarters, fight constantly to establish their pecking order, which results in damaged feathers.

When searching for the best skin and feathers to tie soft hackles, look for one taken in late fall that offers clean, undamaged feathers in a variety of colors. Most skins will give fly tiers hundreds of light-gray mottled feathers along with brown, reddish, and golden-brown feathers.

We use all feathers from a Hungarian partridge skin for our soft hackles. Beginning at the head of the bird, expect to find small, well-mottled feathers for smaller flies. Moving down to the throat of the bird skin and along the sides, look for the well-marked gray feathers that we use on most soft-hackle patterns. Next, from the throat and sides of the skin to the back of the bird and down to the tail, you’ll find hundreds of large, well-mottled brown, golden, and tan feathers used for several soft-hackle patterns and especially for bonefish flies.

Pheasant Tail Flymph Fly-Tying Recipe

• Hook: Umpqua UC610BL-BN, 1X heavy, wide gap, barbless,#8-#20.
• Thread: 8/0 Semperfli, olive.
• Ribbing: Extra-small to medium gold copper wire.
• Tail: 4-8 pheasant tail barbs (4 for #14).
• Body: Pheasant tail barbs used for tail.
• Thorax: Hareline Hare’e Ice Dub, peacock.
• Hackle: Gray Hungarian partridge.

Fishing the Flymph

This soft-hackle fly, tied on a heavier hook, is really a combination nymph and emerger. It was called a Flymph by James Leisenring and Pete Hidy in their books The Art of Tying the Wet Fly and Fishing the Flymph. Their technique is to simply cast across and up a bit to let the fly sink deeply.When the line straightens downstream, lift the rod to bring the fly to the surface. This simple action is the Leisenring Lift. Most times the fish will take as the lift pulls the fly toward the surface. If you try to do this with a fly tied on a light hook, it will drag on the surface, which often produces the same effect as any other dragging dry fly—a refusal.

The Gear for Flymphs

I now do almost all my trout fishing with either an eight-foot, three-weight cane rod or a ten-foot, two-weight nymphing rod. The light rods allow me to better impart action with the flexible tip. A stiff five-weight rod, after you cast, is just a stick in your hand. Also, the lighter two- and three-weight lines help avoid the line droop that comes off the end of the rod. You want a tight connection from the tip of your rod to the fly. I also use hand-knotted leaders, which create more drag in the water, further straightening the line and providing the all-important direct connection to the fly. Then add a four-foot tippet of 4X or 5X. The lighter the tippet, the deeper the fly will sink. The combination of a light, flexible rod; a narrow, light line; and a hand-knotted leader makes the following technique possible.

With a two-fly system, I recommend having the larger fly on the point and one size smaller on the dropper. I tie the dropper on the tag end of a surgeon’s knot and keep the flies about three to four feet apart. The reason for fishing two flies, besides giving the trout a choice of different sizes, is that they will have different actions. At times I’ve caught eight out of ten fish on the dropper fly, at other times the opposite. Be warned: Fishing with two flies is illegal in some places around the world.

Cast the line across the current at about a forty-five-degree angle downstream. As soon as the fly is in the water, lift the slack part of your line and place it to the side and slightly upstream.

This upstream mend slows the swing of the fly. Make sure you don’t over-mend and pull the fly out of the water. The upstream mend also prevents the slack line from getting caught by the current, resulting in your fly swinging at an unnaturally fast speed. It also gives time for the fly to sink. The ten-foot rod makes mending easier.

With your rod at about a twenty-degree angle down to the water, follow the line with the tip of the rod. As the line tightens, lift the rod tip to about a thirty-five-degree angle. (Don’t worry if you left your protractor at home—your angles don’t need to be exact.) As the fly swings, make an occasional twitch with the tip of the rod. It’s important that the tip moves only two or three inches at most, no more.

To make the proper twitch, hold the rod with your thumb on the top of the handle and your upper arm straight down in a relaxed position (easy on the rotator cuff). The twitch is imparted to the tip by squeezing the bottom fingers of the hand, not by raising the rod.

If you look at your hand while you are doing this, you hardly see any movement at all. Almost everyone who tries to do this twitch overdoes it at first. Here’s the rule: If you think you’re not moving the fly enough, move it less. The key is to work only the top foot and a half of the rod, and just squeezing those bottom two fingers does the trick beautifully.

What you’re trying to do is imitate the emerging and swimming stages of the caddis or mayfly. This is the stage when they are most vulnerable to trout. As a result of the twitching actions, the Flymph is moving upward through the water in tiny increments of one to three inches. While it may resemble the traditional wet-fly swing, what we’re doing here is quite different—and far more effective.

Note: If you don’t fish with the light rods mentioned earlier, you can still approximate the twitching technique. Just place the rod tip down to the water and strip in line in two- or three-inch increments. On lakes or on extremely windy days, you may even need to do this with the two- or three-weight rods to keep a straight line and direct connection to the fly.

If I were limited to trout fishing with only one pattern of fly, I would choose a size 14 Pheasant Tail Flymph in the spring and early summer and a size 16 or 18 in the midsummer and fall.

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