It has been a very bad week in too many ways to count... As therapy I have been busily tying flies and trying not to think about several things like the good friend that failed to wake up Monday morning, though she was apparantly healthy and relatively young. I fell on the ice just over a week ago and whacked some ribs pretty badly. They do not hurt as bad as losing a friend though. And that will be enough of the Debbie Downer for now...

I absolutely love tying steelhead speys. Many of these are established patterns, some are close, and some more are just whatever seemed right at the moment. Lots of blue-eared pheasant hackle and married goose wings. Few have less than three ribbings, though this sort of photo will not show that.

I teach the occasional class on tying these wings and it gets harder all the time to imagine why they start out so tough...
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