welcome to the first episode of Rio's how-to videos this one we're going to
look at how to fish a soft tackle on a river and I've chosen this one because
it's probably one of the easiest ways of fishing in a river you don't have to
cast well you don't have to pay attention and you can catch fish good
way of starting it's also a lot of fun and it's also quite tactical when you
get into it and technical when you get into it so there's a lot of reasons to
fish it soft hackles are just small flies with soft little hackles and
little bodies and and they assimilate emerges and they simulate nymphs and
they can simulate drowned insects and the large ones can assimilate fry so
they simulate a lot of things that are under the surface film so soft tackles
are eaten perfectly by fish well worth fishing and that's why we're starting
with the episode on soft tackles now in this series you'll see that each of the
films we do will be starting off with a little tackle guide kind of the right
gear for fishing the style gear is really important because obviously if
you set it up right you've got a better chance of catching fish and a better
part chance of the line and everything performing when you're casting so each
episode is going to start with this thing and for soft crackling I like to
fish a for weight outfit you're not going to fish strong and heavy leaders
so you fish light leaders you'd want a heavy outfit that's going to snap when
you set the hook so I like to fish a for weight this is Sage's x rod but whatever
for weight you like is a really good starting tool for soft tackling on the
end of that and the fly line I am I think it's really important you have a
fly line with long tapers give you a nice soft presentations because the
flies are small so Rio's in touch trout LT is probably the best choice of line
for fishing soft tackles or if you like to do a lot of roll cast and spake us
and stuff like that the in touch single-handed spray that's another
really good line and personally my favorite for swinging soft hackles so
one of those two lines are great something with a long taper on the front
end of that line you don't want to put your regular leader on you can try you
can certainly start off but the soft tackles are very light and small and
when you cast them across the current and swing around which is
we're gonna be fishing these things they can sometimes skate in the surface film
fish don't like to come up to the surface swim and grab them you might see
splashes behind the surf of the fly there that indicating that the fish are
not taking it but they're interested so if you are starting with a regular
leader and not getting fish go down a little bit and put on
it's sinking leader and we make these thinking leaders a trio these are called
versa leaders the clear one here this is an intermediate versa leader and it's
brown one this is a slow sinking versa leader and both of them sink and we'll
make sure the Flies swing under the current a little bit deeper more in that
taking zone so put those on the end of your line and then on the front end of a
versa leader you want to attach just a regular bit of tippet I tend to fish 4x
off it so this is 4x powerful X plus which is our strongest tippet material I
like to have a short section of that and then because I fish more than one fly
I always fish 2 flies I would heartily recommend fishing 2 flies then you set
yourself up with what's called a tippet ring and tip it ring is just a very easy
way of fishing more than one fly more on that when we come to the rigging section
and then tie to the tippet ring you just tie a little bit of the 5x tippet
material down to your point fly and then you hang a second fly off the tippet
ring and that is your team that is your whole setup so that is really all you
need if you're going to do this soft tackling so let's take jump in a boat
take a float down the South Fork but find a nice little riffle a perfect area
show you how everything's set up and show you how to fish soft angles I've
got a really rigged up now so I got my line I got my intermediate versa leader
here attached to that about three feet of 4x tipping I like to a tip it ring
and then hanging from the tip it ring is a large soft hackle and then three to
four feet behind that on 5x tip it I put my small soft tackle so that's my
typical soft hackle set up when I'm prospecting when I don't know where the
fish are and just kind of randomly fishing it blind in terms of selection
of where to fish this is a perfect kind of area you want water that's between
about one foot and three foot in depth with a nice light wave to it not
whitewater tumbling and tumbling round not smooth silky glass you can catch
fish in those but the ideal water is just like this light wave
one two three foot depth and we've we've posted up here so I'm gonna get in the
water start the top of the run and show you how to fish this off tackle so come
out to the top of the pool and the top of the pool is really where this riffle
II water starts the nice fishy water start and as I look down this island
I've got about a hundred yards of good water and I'm gonna start at the top end
and I'm gonna fish my way all the way down to the bottom end soft tackling is
about as easy as fly-fishing get on a river I taught my kids that way I teach
a lot of beginner people how to fly fish and River this way because really you
can do an awful lot wrong and catch fish you can make a really bad grumpy old
cast and the current will wash it out for you you can not look for anything
you can be looking around at birds and suddenly a fish hooks itself so it's a
very easy way of kind of just getting into fly fishing on a river when you
know a little bit about more what you're more about what you're doing you're
going to be casting a line around about 30 to 45 degrees across the river and
then you're going to have your rod swing around with the fly line in the current
until the line stops swinging and that's what's called the dangle the dangle is
the part of the swing where the line really won't stop it won't go any
further it just stops swinging right about there
that's the dangle and once you get to the dangle you pull a couple of pulls of
line in you walk down a pace or two and you make a cast again to that same 30
degree 45 degree angle and repeat that same swing thing there's a couple of
tips on this when you get a grab it's not something you're looking for you'll
know every grab you get because it's a tug that's great that's so we're very
obvious it's a it makes sure everybody recognizes when it's a take but a lot of
people get broken off when they're fishing soft hackers with four five six
X tippet and that's because the rod is too low as it swings you got a very
tight connection between you and the fly when your rods low and so I like when
I'm soft tackling to have my rod just raised up a little bit so there's a
little bit of slack line hanging down there's a bit of a curve hanging down
for my rod that allows for a fish to grab it savagely and there's a little
bit of shock absorption in that and you'll find you'll still catch as many
fish you just won't break off as many fish on that grab
as one see that one took on the dangle liner swung round I hadn't retrieved
waited for a second bang as the grab this has taken the smaller soft tackle
on the point not a big fish cause it's in the shallow water hurry up long
distance release but still a fish
well that one took typically as soon as the camera was turned off got to the end
of the pool fly was there on the dangle bang right on the end of the dangle this
one has taken the large soft tackle on the dropper with lovely little cutthroat
yeah it has gone perfect how about that for a nice easy release so as you can
see work my way down from the top of the pool to the bottom fish maybe 25 minutes
swinging had three or four fish had a couple of bumps fish come off eight or
ten electric shock grabs so it's a great way of producing action when you're
fishing and even though you're not gonna land all those fish nobody ever does on
the soft tackle your lines a bit tight for that to happen it's still super fun
hopefully you enjoyed this episode of Rio's how-to how to fish a soft tackle
and if you did maybe else tune in again and watch another future episode thanks
a lot for watching