Some of the best fly fishermen I’ve known have been wet fly and soft hackle fisherman. Forty years ago, this wouldn’t have been surprising. Back then, many fly fishers used soft hackles. But when nymphing gained popularity in the second half of the twentieth century, its new-found prominence came at the expense of older fly styles. But I still fish soft hackles often, and they still fool a lot of fish for me. Perhaps soft hackles work so well because they’re not popular—it often seems like fly patterns that are less familiar to the fish work the best—or maybe it’s because soft hackles do a great job imitating so many insects. One of my favorites is the TCO ice-dub pheasant tail soft hackle.

This fly has a lot fish-attracting elements built into it. First, and maybe the most important, is its bead. Most soft hackles are tied without beads probably because most soft hackle patterns are old, created before beads became a popular fly tying ingredient. But this fly’s bead helps it to sink quickly into the trout’s feeding zone. The bead also gives the appearance of bulk to the fly’s thorax. This looks natural since many insects are tapered from their thorax to the end of their abdomen. The Ice dub used for the body also gives the fly some flash, providing that life-like sparkle that can often inspire trout to strike. Finally, the partridge wing, a soft hackle staple, absorbs water also helping the fly sink. As it sinks, its mottled, webby strands move enticingly, adding to the illusion of life.

The TCO ice-dub soft hackle can be used to imitate emerging tan and brown caddis species, but my favorite time to fish it is during the slate drake (I. bicolor) mayfly hatch. Slate drake nymphs are strong swimmers and swinging the fly through riffles with a down and across presentation can be deadly. But I’ll also fish the soft hackle as a searching pattern in tandem with a nymph. When I’m using the fly this way, I usually attach a weighted nymph above it and then drop the ice-dub soft hackle below with a 6 to 10 inch (depending on the depth and clarity of the water) piece of tippet. I’ll sometimes use an indicator with this rig if I need to suspend the flies, but if the water is high, or flowing swiftly, I’ll remove the indicator and add lead shot to the leader to get the flies deep. Fish often strike this fly aggressively, making it easy to detect strikes.

These days fly fishing has gone high-tech, and many of the advancements have made fly fishing easier and more enjoyable. The ice-dub soft hackle is a bridge between the old and the new, combining modern synthetic fly tying materials with an ancient style of flies. The fish really seem to like the combination.