Diamond Softhackle - Olive and Ginger

[skunkaroo]

• Hook: 14 Knapek D
• Thread: Olive Pearsall’s silk
• Tail: CDL Fibers
• Hackle: “Ginger” Cookshill Hen
• Thorax: Olive Diamond Ice Dub

Notes: Hackle is tied open à la Stewart’s Spider through the thorax with two touching turns behind the head. Meant to be fished dressed, upstream on a team of three (ideally). Colours can be altered to suit—Orange and true ginger, Tan and Black, Grey and Dun, etc—varying the thorax appropriately.

[newriverspey]

Nice tie! I have not tied on Knapek hooks before but that hook looks interesting.

[skunkaroo]

Thanks for the compliment

I only realized I’d posted it to the wrong sub forum after the fact. I’ve been a long time gone.

The Knapek dry fly hook has some pluses and minuses. As a factory barbless it’s designed to have a deep throat primarily for holding power after the hook set. The slight upturned beak adds to this. However for heavily hackled dry flies that deep throat closes the gape and can lead to missed fish, as a result I rarely use it for dries (it’s also a bit on the heavy side). Luckily those same features make it excellent for softhackles—enough weight and great holding performance.

It’s used in a lot of competition scenarios (as are most of Knapek hooks) for it’s penetration and holding aspects.