Soft hackle Wet flies

What are soft hackle wet flies? Are they nymphs, cripples, emergers or drowned adults or what? What ever they are soft hackle wet flies, in the middle of a hatch, are as good as it gets. I use wet files almost exclusively for the Mother's Day Caddis hatch but that's early in the season and the water is brown--and dry flies are too hard to see when it's windy choppy cloudy and cold--and when there are zillion real flies on the water that all look too much like your dry fly. Soft hackle wets work well during early summer Pale Morning Dun hatches too. During Spring and Fall baetis I mostly stick to soft hackle wet flies but I do mix things up with dry flies and emerger-like nymphs. If I was fishing BWOs on a spring creek I might be influenced by the "change flies" strategy, but for me Fall Baetis usually means fishing from a drifting boat on large tailwater rivers. If something suddenly starts to work I run with it. During Fall Baetis time (Blue Winged Olives) on my favorite North Central Montana tailwater fishery, I usually drift the river with my Helena Montana buddy Randy Dix. He almost always fishes dry flies. I fish small bluish-gray soft hackle wets. We usually do equally well.