Instead of stripped peacock ......
In the past several years I have been tying some effective patterns using a stripped peacock quill. Loved the color, did not like the durability of the stripped quill as it seemed to get chewed up quite a bit after 3-4 fish. Was piddling around last year with a new material and thought "Why not"; tied up a dozen flies and tested them a couple of weeks later with very good results. Instead of the stripped quill I used a piece of PowerPro line (probably 15 lb test.) The string looked like it was wound to me and after a few minutes was able to separate into separate strings which resulted in a very small diameter. Perfect for what I was using it for. I've used if on dries, soft hackle, and midges with success.
This may be old news to some of you, but it was new to me and it works well. I always add a layer of superglue to my bodies to try to bulletproof them and the glue tends to make the PP line a bit darker.
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