Pheasant tail Archives

The honey troglodyte

I have been tying along a particular theme recently, that being nymphs with a V-Rib body and a tungsten bead. On this one I was focusing on getting a glowing translucence in the body: Place a 2.5mm black tungsten bead on a #14 or #16 nymph hook. Tie in a rough base (for grip) of bright yellow silk (70 denier used here) Tie in a tail of natural blonde squirrel tail, and use the tag end to build up the thorax a little , so securing the bead. Tie in a small bunch of cock pheasant tail fibres as

24 October 2014

Knotted legs

In a previous posting I showed a fly pattern that uses knotted pheasant tail legs, and I promised a posting to help readers tie these. Tying knots in short pieces of feather fibre is difficult, so don’t beat yourself up if you end up with bits of knotless feather on the floor, and a foul temper. That would be entirely normal, and part of the process. In fact, if I haven’t tied these in a while, I forget all my own learning and do the same for a good 20 minutes before the synapses fire, and I remember this method:

9 August 2013

The Haberdashery Caddis

I strolled into a haberdashery yesterday while my son had his hair cut. The woman behind the counter viewed me with suspicion over the top of her bifocals. I was an uncommon sight for her I suppose. She seemed happy enough when I bought a few things however. One of those things was a small reel of glistening green material, with no name on it. While she was ringing it up I converted it into a Caddis pupa in my minds eye. After dinner I converted it into a Caddis pupa in my vice.

6 March 2013