Hi REE,

That might work. You only use about 6 fibres from the feather and wrap them like you would when making a PTN. Twisting them a bit before wrapping exposes the bright red and the underside, which is orangeish, and makes for a subtlely mottled body. Looks very nice when you can keep the fibres together and not break them! One would want to completely hide the thread when you wrap the fibres around it to keep this look, but if you use long enough fibres and can do this it would probably work. I'm sure counter-wrapping very fine gold wire would do too, but I like the look of the body so much that I don't really want to interfere with it. I realise that the fish, when looking up a the fly silohetted against the sky, can probably not see any of this and just sees a dark blob above an impression in the water surface, but hey, I spend more time looking at the flies than the fish do!

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. Will give it a try.

- Jeff