Photo by Steven Brutger

Matthew Copeland can tell a story (there’s no doubt about that), and Stalking the Seam has become one of my favorite reads on the web.

In Stuff That Works, Copeland tells a short story around the effectiveness of soft hackle wet flies — and so much more.

Year after year, I hear the soft hackle wet fly is “experiencing a renaissance.” Fact is, they’re too simple to gain the trust of many fishermen. The basic form of body, rib and hackle (most often in natural materials) looks bland and unconvincing next to the fancy dress of modern flies, and they are passed over.

Copeland writes,

Dead-drifted cross-current passed cut-banks, swung through the riffles, dragged over a surface film, or even gently jigged mid-column in undifferentiated straights, soft hackles have a nifty habit of evoking come-to-mama strikes from fish you hadn’t even suspected of being around.

….. There aren’t many 500-year-old technologies still in use. No one writes with quills anymore. Dead reckoning still works, technically, but it’s fallen decided out of favor with the transoceanic set. And, at some point, we all have to accept the fact that human performance bears a non-negotiable expiration date.

Obsolescence, it seems, is inescapable.

Read more of Stuff That Works from Stalking the Seam.

Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com