Sakasa Spiders

Soft Hackle Spiders are the flies of my youth.  These days we see the popularity of soft hackle flies in Mike Kinney’s flies, Tenkara flies, and Pesca Alla Valsesiana flies.  All of these disciplines have used a reversed type hackle to make their flies more attractive to the fish.  The blending of the Sakasa Hackle with my woven body has breathed new life into my tying and fishing. 

I like to move the fly and get bored with a slack line presentation.  Using tension on presentation allows me to fish all those places that I could not using a slack line.  This series of Sakasa Spiders are tied on larger than normal hooks to make them par proof.  A par is a juvenile salmo or steelhead and mortality rate is high even if the fish is return gently.  Most of the exhaustion comes from being hooked and dragged in against the current ... with little care given to the fish.

As the summer moves on we use smaller flies yet retain the movement from the oversized hackle.  I pick hackles that are twice the body length.  In doing so, the hackle will form a large umbrella flare and will be large enough to be a noise generator along with very large profile to cover the large area of water with very few casts.