Palmered hackle legs

A woolly bugger is a good example of a fly with a palmered hackle that represents legs. With a palmered hackle the legs extend along the full length of the fly and in all directions. When palmering legs onto any fly be careful not to overdress the fly with too much hackle. Most things that trout eat only have 2 and 8 legs.

• Legs - palmered hackle

Hackle beard legs

Hackles are said to be tied in beard style when they are tied in toward the front of the fly and then the barbules are pulled down and back with the tips of the hackle fibres toward the hook point. A good example of a bearded hackle fibres is a Mudeye.

• Legs - hackle beard

Teased out legs

The illusion of legs and gills on a fly can be created by carefully picking out or teasing out dubbing. The dubbing can be picked out with a needle or bodkin or for a more robust effect can be pulled out by "sanding" the fly with a section of male Velcro.

• Fuzzy nymph

Full 360° hackle legs

Legs on a wet fly are tied in "full" when a substantial number of wraps of the hackle are taken and the hackle tips extend 360 degrees around the hook shank all pointing back at an angle of between 30 degrees and 45 degrees to the hook shank as in the case of church nymph.

• Church nymph

Sparse 360° or soft hackle

A sparse set of 360° legs  or soft hackle legs are created on a fly when just one or two turns of soft wet fly hackle are wound around the shank of the hook and the hackle tips extend 360 degrees around the hook shank all pointing back at an angle of between 30 degrees and 45 degrees to the shank of the hook as in the case of spider.

• Black & peacock spider

Flat over thorax hackle legs

Although this is a nifty way of representing legs on a fly, particularly a nymph, it is not used very often.

• Flat over thorax legs

Divided legs

Divided hackles are either hackles that have first been tied in beard style and then separated or are individual hackle fibres such as those in my nymph that are tied along each side of the thorax.

• Chatto's nymph

Knotted hackle legs

Single and multiple hackle fibres make very realistic legs when first knotted and then tied along the side of a fly.From time to time, particularly if your tying hopper type flies, you will come across a recipe that calls for knotted hackle legs. The most common hackle used is pheasant tail and if you have big fingers like me you can find it very hard to tie the knot. If you follow the following the following process becomes much easier.

• Chatto's leggy wake fly

Rubber or silicon legs tied in Chernoble style

Rubber and silicon legs come in various thickness and in either round or square profile and can be incorporated into many flies so as to impart further realism and movement into the fly.

• Bass popper

Rubber or silicon legs installed using a darning needle

Rubber and silicon legs come in various thickness and in either round or square profile and can be incorporated into many flies so as to impart further realism and movement into the fly.

• Rays beetle

Synthetic material beard legs

Particularly on Estuary and Bass flies and increasingly on Trout flies synthetic  material is a popular choice when it comes to representing legs on a a fly.

• Estuary fly

Hot legs

For those of us that subscribe to the impressionistic side of fly tying this is a great technique of representing legs and feelers on flies. It an extension of  the loop dubbing technique that uses deer hair as the dubbing material rather than the traditional softer wool, fur and synthetic dubbing materials.

• Tying hot legs

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