Paying my respect to a true master of fly tying and flyfishing, the late great Jack Gartside. If I had to choose just one streamer fly for the rest of my days of fishing, Jack’s Soft Hackle Streamer would come out on top. You can wrap up a dozen of these in an hour and […]
My marabou jig is basically a Jack Gartside’s Soft Hackle Streamer tied on a jig hook. The intro to this video was filmed on one of the first warm days in April – that’s why I talk about ice out and early spring fishing. This jig catch fish all year round, but when fish are […]
We are going down under the surface in rivers and lakes, to watch a bunch of streamer flies from the fish’s perspective. This underwater footage is filmed over a period of several years in different environments from fast flowing clearwater spring creeks, over slow flowing rivers to lakes of different clarity. Most of the flies […]
I’m a big fan of the late Jack Gartside, and I’ve tied a lot of his wonderful Soft Hackle Streamer. I have used it for decades for trout, perch, pike and a variety of saltwater predators as well. This is my own variations on Jack’s pattern, using blood quill marabou, schlappen feathers and jungle cock […]
I have been fishing Jack Gartside’s Soft Hackle Streamer for decades, and I have made my share of variations over the theme. One of the most successful versions has been my Soft Hackle Tube. Recently I made a few improvements to the fly, combining the soft spey-like blood plume marabou feathers with large schlappen feathers […]
Firetail Booby I invented this pattern more than a decade ago. I was inspired by flies like Jack Gartside’s Soft Hackle Streamer and a lot of the colourful steelhead flies. What I wanted was hot colours and flash, but I also wanted it to be a little bit subdued. The solution was to hide the […]
Well it probably isn’t a secret, that I’m a big fan of Jack Gartsides Soft Hackle Streamer. And… since I’m slowly becoming a tube man in this winter (not the Michelin style, gigglehead – I’m just tying a lot of tube flies)- well I kind of cloned the concepts and made a batch of Soft […]
Tying and fishing Jack Gartside’s super simple Soft Hackle Streamer got me thinking: Is there a reason why fly tiers invent more and more complicated patterns. I can spend an afternoon tying a streamer fly with flashy fibers, kicking rubber legs, smiling mouth, staring eyes and all the other stuff we sometime believe is necessary […]
I am a streamer fishing addict – and I like my streamers to live, breathe, pulsate and swim. Naturally I go for fly tying materials that will support this plan. Marabou is one of the materials, I just can’t do without. Now to assume that marabou is just marabou – is the fly tying analogy […]
