Aftershaft Grey Hackle Peacock SBS

All about flies Fly Tying
1

Browsing through the old ff-ing mags I found some flies Jack Gartside tied up that looked pretty cool. He wrapped the aftershaft as is; I tend to break them off tying that way so prefer to insert in split thread. A little different look here than traditional partridge/India hen/gamebird hackle.

hook - Mustad 3906B #12
thread - Danville 6/0 brown
body - peacock herl
hackle - aftershaft feather (sharptail grouse used here)

Part 1

mash barb, attach thread

take some peacock herl, trim ends even, tie in and wrap back

slightly twist herl with thread for re-enforcement (alternate would be to rib with fine wire) and wrap forward to create body; tie off peacock and trim

pull off an aftershaft feather; insert in clip (makes it a lot easier to manage)

2

Part 2

split thread with needle and insert clip/feather; you want the thread next to the quill

spin bobbin to trap feather and create “hackle”

wet fingers, stroke fibers back and wrap; half hitch x 2 and SHHAN

If you want a little less hackle, strip the fibers off one side of the feather

Regards,
Scott

3

Like it. Will tie a few up.

Rick

4

And to think I was throwing away all the aftershaft feathers, thanks for a use for them.

5

A very under utilized feather. Gartside worked magic with these. I really like the second version, with one side stripped.
Thanks

6

Great idea on using the split thread. I’ll never think of after shaft feather as waste product again. Thanks for sharing this.

7

Like Rick I like the looks of the fly. However I decided to try tying it with the an Emu feather in lieu of the aftershaft.
It turned out pretty well without splitting the thread.

Thanks for the pattern and the idea.

Tim

8

Aftershaft lake leeches are incredibly effective flies…

9

Scott - very informative on a seldom used feather. I tie so many Spent Caddis flies that I use a ton of pheasant feathers and always save the after-shafts for my nymphs. I use them to tie stone fly nymphs and some generic nymphs as well… nice SBS…

10

Very nice. I’ve got to start using split threads more often.
Did you purposely omit the tails?

11

I did. That’s how Mr. Gartside had tied it up and I was just following his lead; tails could certainly be added.

Regards,
Scott

12

There was a two-fold reason why I asked:

  1. You had it listed in the recipe, and
  2. Last night I was tying a fly that called for tippet tail. I got the tippet out but forgot and used dun hackle. Put that one off to the side and did a few the correct way. The mind is such a terrible thing to waste, LOL.

Allan

13

Allan,

Fixed the recipe (must have fat-fingered that in); thanks for pointing that out. Talk about wasting minds :smiley:

Regards,
Scott