Hi, folks. Which part of a partridge skin produces the feathers used in wets such as partridge and orange, etc. ? Thanks for any wisdom.
The simple answer is anyplace that has the right color and size for the fly you are tying; back,breast and shoulders all work. The wing feathers are only good for wingig flies.
all leaders tangle; mine are just better at it than most. Jim
Thanks Rainbowchaser and Chris. Just what I needed to know.
yep same when selecting a feather , search and pluck whats needed for the moment
Traditionally for a partidge and orange the feather should come from the grey part of the neck.
But providing the feather has long fibres a fine stem, and is not too webby so it is mobile when tied in sparse, they can come from anywhere on the bird.
North Country Spiders are fished upstream in the fast currents of rocky streams of Yorkshire and Lancashire, so the fibres must be tied fairly sparsly to represent insect legs but not so sparse so it drowns. The fibres need lots of life.
Same with other Spider patterns, Snipe and Purple, Blae ad Black etc…
All good fishcatchers in shallow fast streams.
A Partridge skin can be used just like a Dry Fly Cape can. You can size the feathers from the center of the back to the head the smaller feathers being on the neck and head area. I tie a lot of soft hackles for a local shop and go through about 10 skins a season. Just use them like you would any other cape in sizing the feathers for a given size of hook. After a bit you will know were to look for the size of feather you need. Ron
Hello Diane,
All very good advice on where to pluck the feathers for soft hackles on a partridge skin.
Sylvester Nemes, in his book “The Soft-Hackled Fly Addict”, has an excellent feather sizing chart on page 98.
I photocopied the page, cut out the chart and placed it between some laminate. I use it all the time to size the feathers on my skins before I pluck them.
Cheers,
Richard
Plano TX
On the subject of partridge feathers for spiders: I love to use partridge for these flies and also several of my nymphs, but sometimes one has a hard job of finding feathers with short enough barbs for smaller size hooks.
There are some tying techniques to use oversize hackles, but as an alternative the Brahma saddles (in the right mottled color) marketed by Whiting make for a very useful substitute. While the barbs are not quite as tapered as the grey (or brown)partridge barbs, the Brahma feathers feature a much thinner stem and a more consistent barb length along the stem. I am using Brahma for my submission to a flymph/spider swap I have entered to make, eh, a Brahma & Olive Spider 
Cheers,
Hans W
=== You have a friend in Low Places ===
http://www.danica.com/flytier
It sounds from some replies that Grey and Brown Partridge are different birds. I just wanted to say that an English Partridge skin has both feathers.
The small neck feathers are the grey unbarred speckled feather (used in Partidge and Orange spiders), while the back feathers are the brown barred feather.
The best way to get all the feathers you need are to buy full skins. Cookshill flytying have excellent skins. Cost about ?19 or ?20 each, male or female available.
Hungarian Partridge are much cheaper than English but are very dissapointing in quality. The much sought after grey neck feathers are much softer and webbier on an hungarian skin and there are lots fewer of them. Go for quality…
Hi Mick,
I couldn’t argree with you more, Cookshill has the best English partridge, along with other fine birds.
In general Male partridge is grey and Female partridge is brown. Both have grey and brown feathers but there is a visable difference in color between the 2.
I agree with you about the small neck feathers when you compare Huns to English Partridge.
Take care,
Jim
[url=http://www.Jimsflyco.com:094d8]www.Jimsflyco.com[/url:094d8] [url=http://www.flymph.com:094d8]www.flymph.com[/url:094d8]
Jim, I do have both male and female skins, but to be perfectly honest I can see very little difference between the two, except the male has a few more grey breast feathers than the female.
However I am a little colour blind, so maybe I am not seeing it correctly.
Thanks so much everyone for the responses. Lots of great info here.
Diane
To tell you what part of a birds skin to find the feathers to use, for a fly pattern, you first have to know where to look. To know how to look for them, the person needs to give you the name for the type of feather you require. The term is Morphology (branch of biology dealing with naming the form and structure (parts) of the organism)!
Morphology of a bird: a warm-blood animal with two wings, two feet, a horny beak and a body covered with feathers.
Scapulars: shoulder feathers of a bird.
Back: back part of a bird’s thorax.
Nape: back of a bird’s neck.
Crown: top part of a bird’s head.
Throat: front part of the neck of a bird.
Breast: front part of the thorax of a bird.
Wing covert: upper part of the wings.
Flank: side part of the body of a bird.
Belly: front of the abdomen of a bird.
Primaries: the largest feathers on the edge of a bird’s wing.
Secondaries: large feathers between the primaries and the tertials of a bird’s wing.
Wing: appendage of aerial locomotion of a bird.
Under tail covert: feathers under a bird’s tail.
Tail feathers: feathers forming the tail of a bird.
Upper tail feather: feathers above the tail of a bird…
Rump: projection of the lower back of a bird.
You have to go to the site below to print out the page with the picture and diagram, or to save the site location to your “Favorites” file.
[url=http://www.infovisual.info/02/053_en.html:ce598]http://www.infovisual.info/02/053_en.html[/url:ce598]
Birds are amazing creatures, that evolved from the “Raptor” (Dinosaur), where the scales covering their bodies, through evolution, evolved into feathers. Really an amazing subject to research. How each portion of the bird’s (raptor’s) body has different shape, texture, and coloration of the feather barbules!
[This message has been edited by Steven H. McGarthwaite (edited 30 November 2005).]
Hi Steven,
I read about dinosuar feathers in a Scientific American magazine. It stated that some Dinosuars had feathers, not scales as once believed. Apparently they found fossils that had feathers in “Carcus” finds. This I do believe was discovered in China.
I wonder what size hook you would need to tie with one of those feather? LOL
Great pic of feather locations, Don’t forget about the marginal and lesser under wing coverts as well, Great for soft hackles.
Take care,
Jim
[This message has been edited by Jim Slattery (edited 30 November 2005).]