Eye spot feathers

[pittendrigh]

The following streamer has an eye-spot made with an unknown and unidentified feather I found in my boxes. What similar eye-spot feathers are legally available? Jungle cock is available, but prohibitively expensive. What legal feathers have an eye-like spot? Guinea Fowl has too many spots. I'm wondering about single spot feathers......which probably don't exist. I just thought I'd ask. You never know what you don't know, even when you know it.



....that's a Bankrobber, for what it's worth. The weight (solid wire solder) is on the bottom of a curved hopper hook--so the hook
rides up. The front-protruding solder encounters rocks or branches before the fly itself, which causes the hook to tip up as it jumps over the branch, un-snagged. You can cast a Bankrobber right into a log jamb and nearly always get it back again. I developed the Bankrobber when my wife was first learning how to cast. It not only catches fish--it saved my marriage.

[ScottP]

Cool fly; it looks like someone just took a marker and put that spot on a silver pheasant feather.

Regards,
Scott

[DonO1]

Scott, correct. You can see the bleed-out at the top left. Jungle cock is the feather of choice for classic eye spots, but I've seen tiers use different kinds of paint on feathers to make eyes. A lot of paints bleed out the paint base, giving the eye a rough outline, but some paints don't break out like this. I wish I could remember what they were using. Maybe someone else has an answer. The type of feather you paint the eye on also is a factor.

[maodiver]

greenwing teal breast have nice spots...as does the flicker (not that I would ever shoot one of those eaves-holing, wood duck nest stealing, bird feeder bullies!!)

[pittendrigh]

The dot on the fly-photo above is made with a naturally-dotted feather, tied on top of a silver pheasant feather.
(it is not a marker-pen dot....so no, there is no 'bleeding' there).

That dotted feather does look a lot like a flicker feather too.
But that cannot be so, because it isn't legal to possess flicker feathers!

[DonO1]

OK, My bad. I looked close and do see the cover-feather. That must be a flicker synthetic substitute.

[WarrenP]

This probably will not help, but, the first feather with an "eye" dot that came to my mind was a starling skin I have, but, the "eye" dot is a golden color and not black.

[Lake Erie High Ball]

Try a mallard duck feather bleached and a sharpie.

[Bluegill222]

I've always used guinea for a light eye on a dark feather and a sharpie for a dark eye on a light feather.

[hap]

Lots of spotted feathers are legally, though not always cheaply available... JC has gotten back to being quite reasonable... Several sellers in Estonia sell them on ebay and they sell for as little as $15 or so for necks with lots of split eyes (which are easy enough to make look good with a touch of hotmelt glue) to about $65 for outstanding necks.

Mearns quail have some very neat spotted feathers and a limited few on each bird have just one spot...




This is a mearns version of the Hornberg... and a deadly fly... Though not really a good eyespot example, just something in photobucket that was easy to post.


A slip of barred wood duck flank has been used for the purpose for a very long time.

Here I used a plain white hackle with a rounded end on a dark background to suggest a large eye. I do this often but cannot easily find any full-dress photos that show it??? And the silver pheasant tippet does not do a very good job of creating the round eye spot, but the idea is almost there!