The peacock and starling, the starling and herl, the starling and yellow, and there must be a few more names for this fly. In Nemes book The Soft-Hackled Fly he mentions this fly with his ingredient list. The items listed a quite sparse..peacock body and starling feather. The fly I tie is about as sparse as far as materials needed, but I choose a body of thread, a peacock herl thorax and a starling feather.
What I would like to show here is the color variations of the yellow thread body. As you see from the first photo the thread used is bright yellow. Through the next few photos I'll show how simple thread can change the body color of the fly.
This is the fly with 2 winds of the yellow thread for the body. It appears to have a greenish tone.
Here is that same fly against a different back ground and the body takes on an olive tone.
Here is that same fly when wet...yet another color variation. Now one would think that the difference would not mean a whole lot...but it did.
So with a few turns of thread, a turn or two of peacock and a tiny starling feather you can tie this simple pattern.
