I haven’t been on here in a while. Thought I’d post a few flies I recently did.
I have a nice pile of Greenwing Teal flank feathers from this season and decided to put them to use. Here is a simple quick and easy dry fly I like to tie. Probably has a name already, like all flies they’ve been invented a thousand times over!
Start with a nice clump of freshly harvested Teal flank feathers.
Barbless hooks of course after all ?what good are they if you DO eat them??
Simply cut a good sized section of barbs off the flank feather. The tips naturally square up and the thin barbs pack in pretty tightly.
Tie in one hook shank length extending beyond the bend.
Stand up the bases of the flank barbs and tie into a post like you would a hair post.
Dub a body, add hackle?.
Trim the feather butts just past the hackle tips. Walla quick and dirty dry fly that does not require measuring out wings.
Repeat with olive dubbing.
You can use the same feathers with Charlie Cravens technique for tying in soft hackles regardless of the length of the feather barbs.
The part that looks like a wonder wing (thanks for that I’m going to use those in the future) was just the tip of a flank feather. Rather than cut a chunk off the middle I just used the tip. That way you can get 3 flies out one feather. I suppose you could get several by doing wonder wings and cutting sections of the center rather off the sides.
Dave, I don’t come to the forum that much anymore. But it was good to see a familar face (err, name). My favorite dries are parachutes. Pretty easy to tie using the same materials you’ve just demonstrated.
