H

H&F
An abbreviation for hair-and-fur. This indicates that the fly has been tied with these materials only, omitting any feather materials.

Hackle
This has two meanings in fly-tying terms. The first is that part of the artificial fly that represents the legs of the natural or sometimes the wings, or is a false, beard or throat hackle on a lure. This is usually a feather, or feather fibres or animal hair in the case of an H&F pattern. The second meaning is the name given to the neck or cape feathers of poultry or game or any bird's neck feather used in fly tying. The part of the artificial fly known as the hackle comes under these headings.

Collar hackle: A 360 degree hackle, often with a slight rearward tilt, usually described as a collar on lures only to differentiate it from a beard or throat hackle.

Dry-fly hackle: Usually the hackle is tied to represent the legs of the floating insect. A cock hackle is preferred as it has the springiness to support the floating artificial. A hackle with points which are too stiff (a trimmed hackle) will penetrate the surface film; this is to be avoided, as the natural's legs rest on the surface. The hackle is normally wound in turns around the shank behind the eye.

False, Beard or Throat hackle: Tied on wet flies and lures on the underside of the body only, and rear facing. They may be poultry hackles, hackle fibres, hair or other feather-fibres.

Fore-and-aft hackles: A means of hackling a dry fly.

Hen Hackle: Hackle feathers from a hen chicken characterized by soft, wide feathers. Since these feathers readily soak up water, they are usually used on nymphs and streamers.

Jungle Cock: A type of hackle with prominent singular white dot patterns often used to suggest eyes.

Neck: Feathers from the neck of the chicken which are shorter and tend to have a wider selection of sizes on a single skin.

Nymph hackles: These should be tied sparsely to represent the legs of the natural, and usually tied on the underside of the body. They are occasionally tied as a sparsely wound full hackle. If there is a wing-case, the fibres are often tied in over the upper hackles; leaving only those below the body.

Saddle hackles: The longish shiny feathers taken from the side of a bird.

Wet-fly hackle: A hen hackle is preferred on a spider type wet fly because of its softness, which gives a look of mobility or life likeness. On a winged wet fly the upper hackle fibres are bunched below the body and are covered by the tying-in of the wing, or are tied as a throat hackle.

Hackle Tip
The tapered, short-fibered end of the hackle.

Hair
Animal hair is used as wing material in many lures in addition to being used for bodies and Muddler heads. The main animal hairs used for the winging of bucktail lures are: squirrel, stoat, goat, bucktail, calf, badger, moose, marten, mink, monkey, fox. Horsehair is now rarely used as a body material.

Head
Lures of all types should be finished off with a head built up of tying thread and varnished black or an appropriate colour. A painted eye can be added. A small head of varnished tying thread makes a winged wet fly look neater.

Half Hitch
A loop with a half twist used to prevent thread from unravelling. A half hitch can be done manually or with a half-hitch tool.

Herl
Feathers used for tying with long individual barbules each having short dense fibers. Typically from Peacock and Ostrich.

Hinge
Describes the effect of the imbalance caused when the connection of materials are too different in diameter or strength to support a cast

Hook
A variety of hook designs exhibit differing lengths of shank, shapes of bend, sizes of gape and styles of eyes. Each has a role to play. Whatever hook is chosen for a particular pattern of fly, be sure that the hook is strong (to test, place it in a tying vice and gently try to bend the shank), that the point is sharp, that the metal of the bend or shank has no flaws, and that the eye is fully closed. any failure of the hook will represent time wasted and fish lost, so discard any hook that is suspect. In addition to a variety of hooks with different bend shapes, other specialist hooks are worthy of consideration.

Barbless hook: The barb has been under attack for the possible damage it does to fish in catch-and-release. Flatten the barb with some pliers.

Midge hook: A tiny hook, down to size 28, for floating midge and caenis patterns. It has a relatively wide gape and short body of lightweight wire. Especially fine tying threadis needed to tie patterns on them.

Parachute-fly hook: A small vertical shank around which the hackle can be tied is attached at right angles to the top of the shank.

Swedish/Danish Dry Fly hook: This has a special kink in the shank behind the eye which provides a base for a parachute hackle.

Swimming Nymph hook: A hook with a bend in the cenre of the shank to produce a bent body in the manner of a swimming natural.

Hook hone
Or hook sharpener; small, portable device carried by fly fishermen to sharpen hooks.

Horsehair
A body material or for ribbing, rarely used.