I used to hand whip but found that I perform much better with the standard (preying mantis style) whip finishing tool. I do like the looks of the orange pheasant tail and plan to give it a try.

Great fly and a bit of an eye opener for me. I have not used snowshoe hare for the thorax, but it looks great. I suspect a fur and "Ice" dubbing blend in a complementary color would also work well.

Mr. Nemes is directly responsible for Soft-Hackles joining my arsenal in the mid-70's - nice tribute.

Reed - That was an explanation that I could understand! Thanks for sharing the knowledge.

For the Partridge and Orange in question I used Uni Floss for the body with an orange silk underbody, hare's ear thorax, and brown partridge hackle. Thanks for the input.

I have been tying and fishing several patterns that rely on the color orange and have had some good success. A good example are some of my Sulphur patterns, both dun and spinner, which appear to be a good match for some of the orange tinted sulphurs that I sometimes run across. What I have cannot re...

Partridge/Orange
Tups Indispensible
Snipe/Purple
Pheasant Tail
Grouse/Orange

I put a thorax on most of my soft hackles if the pattern doesn't already call for one.

I kept a journal for one season shortly after graduating from college. As a newlywed with no children I was free and easy, but at some point my spouse started to question the amount of time I spent fly fishing as opposed to other more domestic duties. I lived (and still do) within close range to som...

I have a couple of Hardy's that I bought new from the same period and the finish on the spools looks very similar to the picture that you posted. These reels are very low maintenance and just require an occasional cleaning and a touch or wipe of lubricant where the metals could wear or provide smoot...

I am relatively new to this site and I am surprised about the lack of posts regarding the new trout season. For what it is worth I will give my report on the past weekend: Water temperature 48F on a small wild trout stream in NJ as I began the afternoon fishing. Things were slow but I managed a heal...