Soft Hackles
Edmond Dantes wrote
partridge and yellow tied with fine yellow wire has saved my skin
many a day. sizes 12-16
In the small freestone mountain creeks of my youthful distant past, most
days had a period when the sun was high and the fish hanging low. Dry fly
action tapered down to slow. My standard approach, at that time of day,
was a partridge and yellow #14 fished upstream just like a dry into the
plunge pools and pockets that define 'fishy' on such lovely little steams.
Almost always you could see the lightly colored SH, well benath the surface,
and the fish that came out of nowhere to eat it .... in many ways this out
performs "dry fly" for intense visual fishing entertainment.
I always "thought" that the P&Y worked so well because of drowned pale duns
and little yellow stones, both of which are common on the streams I fished
.... but Willi thinks it was because I put the fly where the fish wanted it
G .... either way, I am sitting here with a big smile, just remembering
the pleasure of those creeks, the sneaking, the climbing over boulders, the
fishing down on one knee ( hurts just thinking about it now ) and the flash
as that SH disappeared into a trout's mouth.
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