Serendipitous Cripple

Working on an FEB nymph issue yesterday and decided to try some black ostrich herl. Picked it up a couple years ago and hadn't gotten around to using any of it.

After incorporating the herl in the FEB it looked kind of cool, so I tied it on a hook. Seeing it there, I decided to wrap the tag end of the herl forward to see how it looked. Kind of liked that effect, so I scrounged up a couple small, good for nothing else, CDC feathers and tied them in.

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...ps6f0274aa.jpg

Didn't look bad on the vice, but it looked better today on the grip.

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...psfa592cc8.jpg

First fishy that took a close look at it refused it. But then things picked up with ...

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...pse01825e6.jpg

... and ...

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...ps37f60d03.jpg

... and three more pretty much like those two.

I thought the CDC wing would prove fragile, and it did. But it was high quality CDC and continued to float the fly right up to the time it started to come apart.

Five nice fishies on a strand of antron, a piece of ostrich herl, and a couple almost good for nothing CDC feathers suited me just fine.

John