Emu/ostrich nymph bubble

[maodiver]

My son had some kind of festival at school...they were giving away emu or ostrich feathers (I think they are emu). The feathers (herl?) are kind of silver badger colored (dark middle, silver tips).

Anyway, I tied some nymphs with a tungsten head, wood duck tail, and body/abdomen of this feather "palmered" tightly together. I dropped it into a glass of water, and you should have seen the bubble it took down with it. The bubble covered the entire body. I squeezed the bubble out, and it just looked buggy. Took the fly out of the water, gave it a virtual back cast (blew on it) and dropped it in again. It took a bubble again, though not quite as big this time. Over and over, this worked, especially when dried on a paper towel.

This one just has to be a fish catcher. I tied it on a size 14 hook, but will be tying them smaller as well.

Go ahead...tell me it's been done before...LOL

Fly on left is virgin. On right has been baptized in a glass of water.

[quivira kid]

If I were a trout, I'd eat it... Good-looking fly.

[eaustin]

Good looking effort. Another thing you can do with Emu, and I got this from Alice Conba in Ireland, is strip the stems and dye them, then use them as quill bodies. They lend themselves to small sizes of quill bodied flies, and don't break or split when wound. I fish a lot of small quill bodies, and the emu quill is just the ticket.
Eric

[mr. blur]

bingo!
that's good to know eric as I have emu feathers up the gazoo.
cool fly too. I suspect what you have is emu, mao. the flues are considerably longer and finer than ostrich...

[maodiver]

these flues (thanks for that vocab) are way longer, but they are about as dense and as thick as ostrich, at least the feather duster I use. I love this stuff. Wish he brought home more, but I can prob. get a few doz. out of this before I go looking for more

[Rick Z]

I have done a similiar fly
tail 3 to 4 peacock sword barbs. body palmered emu feather.
bead head and on some a long soft hackled feather. Works great on panfish.

Rick

[Panman]

One of my favorites:

[Steven McGarthwaite]

Peacock Herl is the smallest
Ostrich Herl is larger than Peacock Herl
Emu Herl is the largest, almost twice as large as Ostrich Herl.

[Fatman]

Got a guy in my town who raises Emu's for selling the meat. Gonna have to take a little ride and see what he does with all those feathers!!!!!!

Fatman

[maodiver]

Hey fatman!! Let me know if you find some, what the cost may be.