I posted the 4th installment of this winter’s fly tying series on my blog tonight (www.kyflyfishguy.blogspot.com).
This week’s fly is a peacock and starling soft hackle fly. I have a number of pictures of the major steps in tying this fly.
If you’re interested, feel free to check it out.
Thanks,
Jeff
Jeff,
The starling and peacock is a favorite fly of mine. Insterad of using a wire core that the herl is wrapped on, I just wrap the herl around my tying thread while it’s at the rear of the hook. Then wrap the thread/herl combination forward. I get a sturdier fly, like yours, without tying in and using the wire. Just a step saver to me, or are you using the wire as added weight for the fly?
This is a really effective fly when there are Grannoms about, especially if they are fished in or near the surface film. The Leisenring Lift method of fishing them works well too.
REE
Ron,
I did put both methods on the blog site. When I’m using a wire core, I tend to not use any additional weight (yes, the wire does add just a bit of weight).
The second group of photos on the blog site showed me usine a “thread loop” and wrapping the hurl around the thread loop.
Like you, I fish this fly in the surface film, but I also will fish it in warm water down off a popper and in that way, I add some weight to get it hanging down more.
Thanks for the comments. It is a very effective fly for me. Glad I’m not the only one who uses it.
Jeff
Is this the fly? I couldn’t tell from the blog …I made a couple recently…they were called Starling and Herl, at least in the recipe I looked at…it looks like a bang up fly…the picture didn’t do it justice
Yes, that is the fly. I know my photos are not that great (need a better camera). Life’s far too short to worry too much about how pretty a fly is anyway. The fish don’t care and as many as I hang in trees, stumps, rocks and other snags I don’t want to be crying over a lost fly. I’ve always believed presentation is much more important than if a fly is pretty. I wasn’t too sure how to read your post so thought a little explaination may help.
The fly can be tied any number of ways. Sometimes, I do put a tail on it with a couple hen cape barbules, and sometimes, I use a gold wire to hold everything together and add just a touch of weight (see discussion with REE above).
But your photo below is the fly and you obviously have a much better camera than I do. This fly is a fish catcher. I checked out some of the other flies on your photobucket site. You do tie nice looking flies.
A variant (in the blog post) is to tie in your starling feather at the hook bend and palmer it all the way to the hook eye. That is not a traditional soft hackle, but it sure does look “buggy” and it has brought a lot of fish to my net.
I tie them both ways. If a person wants to make it look just like ones in a book or spend time making it pretty, cool. I love to look at pictures of pretty flies and enjoy it when FAOLers post them for us all to see.
Jeff
Nice looking fly Kelkay porportions are perfect!!