How to Tie a Wet Hackel: Basic Fly Tying Instructions

Video Transcript

" Hi, this is Robert Brown for Expert Village.com. I am going to show you how to tie a wet hackle. Now this is a feather that is similar in fiber style to the dry hackles but it clings to water a lot, more readily and it will get water logged which on a wet fly is exactly what you want. You want to break off this chunk of fluffy stuff. It doesn’t help you at all. It just becomes garbage and you take the fiber of this feather and you strip just the front part of the main stem and then you take that little piece of the main stem and place it on top of your fly and you tie it in. After you tie it in, you begin wrapping it just like you did the shaneel towards the front of the fly. In fact, with shaneel it is really neat because you can pull the hackle fibers down into the shaneel in between wraps and get a really cool effect. Again, pull it to the top of the fly and just make a couple or two or three wraps to hold it in there. This is now garbage. You just cut that off. Take three fingers without capturing your thread and pull the fibers back out of the way and you wrap up enough floss to make a little head on your fly and you take the whip finishing tool. "