The hen pheasant. I think it's the most versatile soft=hackle material out there. Just look at the amount of excellent usable feathers. There are so many sizes, and color variations and they can be applied to create almost any insect out there. Another good point to bring into this is the fact that the cost of this hen pheasant skin is cheap in comparison to other bird materials. It's value is tops in my book. The photo above shows a section of the pheasant skin near the rump. The thread spool is near the feathers that are very soft, marabou like. They have a slight barring to them and when wrapped on a hook make for life like movement in the water.
A pheasant marabou feather. I have tied several flies using this feather and have been successful especially in the last few weeks.
The pheasant and orange soft-hackle. Along with the super soft marabou feather I also slightly dub the body.
The partridge and olive, with a slight dubbed body. This fly has been working very well.
I agree about the hen pheasant, Alan. Beautiful markings and soft enough to wiggle. Just wish there were more smaller ones.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Shuck
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Bill there are a great deal of large feathers. The skin I have I selected in person and found one, actually there were several that had an abundance of small feathers.
My last purchase of a partridge skin was not so good. Not enough of large feathers.
Do you know of an alternative to partridge?
I do not, Alan. English (Hungarian) partridge pretty much stands alone as far as I know. There may be hen chicken somewhere that is marked like that, but I've not seen it.
Deletefrom: Doug Korn - I totally agree Alan.... you can tie everything from drys to streamers with pheasant feathers... I use it to tie my favorite fly the Spent-wing Caddis, right on.
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Doug, your spent wing caddis is a fly I fooled with this summer. I had a few good outings using it.
You guys are right! Very versatile bird indeed! Conversely, cock ring-necked pheasant looks really good but there just isn't a lot of useful stuff there! As soft-hackle nuts, we seem to thrive on the more subdued and finely mottled hen pheasant rather than the flashy cock bird plumage! I hope I haven't opened up a can of worms?
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Dougsden
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Doug I agree. The cock bird has a lot of large feathers, I find them useful in streamer shoulders bur not in soft-hackle flies. The really soft-marabou feathers are super in many of my streamers. The hen on the other hand has many useful feathers with really fine markings...the can is open.