The Soft Hackle Brassie

My friends Paul, Dennis and Jim have been fishing the kettle ponds of Cape Cod and environs all fall and through December, with awesome success.  I haven't quite found my way down to fish with them, as I seem to have put my gear away in early September.  But I have enjoyed Paul's frequent telephone calls with "fish reports"  to tell me how great the pond fishing (stocked trout) has been this year (unlike last year).

Paul loves to fish dry flies and usually waits to see insect activity before stringing his flyrod.  This is the advantage you have when you live so close to good trout water.  Over the years he's developed some good instincts for fishing his home waters through the fall and until the last pond freezes over.

But this year, Paul and my other buddies seemed to have eschewed the dry fly and have found their greatest success with what Paul calls a soft hackle brassie.  I recently asked him to send me a sample and he quickly tied up a couple of each of the colors he'd been using:  copper, red, and green.

Paul is a great story teller and writer.  He's written two "Flies with a Story" articles for my Web site, here and here.  I've asked Paul to write a story about fishing the soft hackle brassie, and I a sure he will.  In the meantime, here are a few pictures I took of the flies he sent me.  These are all tied on size 12 hooks.