How to Tie a Dry Fly Hackel: Basic Fly Tying Instructions

Video Transcript

"In this clip I am going to be demonstrating how to try in some dry fly hackle. You want to select a hackle that is the appropriate size for the hook you are using. In this case because I am using this big large streamer hook, I’ve got this really big fly that no hackle that exists for but it is big enough that you will be able to see. You want the hackle fibers from the stem of the hackle to one side to be about the same distance or just a little more than from the tip of the hook to the body. You want to strip the hackle fibers off the very stem portion and that stem is what you are going to tie in. The stem is rectangular, not round, actually rectangular and if you tie it in correctly the really bright colors of the hackle fiber will be all facing when you pull the hackle over to the side. The Bright side; this is the dull side. The bright side will all be facing to the forward portion of the fly. Now if you have a long hackle and this one is pretty long, I can actually do this by hand. If you have a short hackle, you switch over to the hackle pliers so that you can get in closer than you could by hand. You just start wrapping this now. When you are wrapping dry fly hackle, I’m like what fly hackle, you want each wrap to be right immediately in front and when you get to the wing section just go ahead and pass it right through the middle between the two wings and start pulling all the fabrics back with your fingers on each wrap. If you run towards the end of the fibers, you can go ahead and take your hackle pliers and get them in there like I am going to because I got big fat fingers. Just wrap that right onto the front of the fly. As always, your material comes up. You wrap the bottom up and over the top three or four times and then you tie in the head of your fly and that is dry fly hackle and that is what dry fly hackle should look like when properly applied."