When rainbows have mayflies on the mind, either just before or during a hatch, a soft hackle pattern can often take more fish than a dry fly. Keep at least half a dozen soft hackle patterns in your box to take advantage of the action.

The Orange Soft Hackle can be put to good use anytime between May and September when you might expect to see a hatch of Pale Morning Duns. Fish it on a dead drift in the surface film in the soft water near a riffle and in back eddies.

Watch for the white of a mouth opening, the flash of a trout rolling, or the pull of your line as the trout takes and turns away.

Tie the Orange Soft Hackle with red thread on a No. 12-16 wet fly hook. Tie the body with red floss. Wrap a sparse thorax of muskrat or hare’s mask. Use Hungarian partridge or guinea hackle for the collar and finish at the head.