Parks' Fly Shop: Tying the White Miller Soft Hackle

[flytyer232]

great tie, keep it up. the one thing i would do different, and is worked on the Madison for me is use white guinea feather, which i think looks more like the real thing. the only problem is that you have to buy them feathers on the skin, and for a size 14, you might only get 100-200 flies for a $15.00 skin, and waste alot of larger, or smaller feathers.

[ParksFlyShop]

That's a good idea. Silver pheasant would probably also look good. There are a lot of ways of getting around the "big feather problem" on soft hackles. The method I usually use is to tie in a bunch of hackle barbs facing forward over the eye with a loose wrap, then slowly tighten the thread to spin them around the shank. Dress the rest of the fly, then brush the hackle back and wrap in front of them to stand the hackle up, sort of like you would with a Sparkledun.

[flytyer232]

great, i never thought of useing that method for wet flies. silver pheasant would look good, but i can't find the stuff at good prices, thanks,

Mike