Hello all, I Tie them with a thorax of fiery brown seals fur sub or a thorax of peacock herl, the rest of the fly - ie tail, abdomen and wing case is pheasant tail ribbed with fine copper wire. So my question is how do you vary yours from the original patern?
I am sure there are many many variations out there.
All the best.
Mike.
I have red, green and natural pheasant feathers. I also tie them from #12 to #20. I guess there isn’t much special about that though. The reds look unique. You can do all kinds of dubbing that look cool. Do they catch fish? Who knows. My go to is natural.
Mike,
Jim Krul had an article in Fly Tyer about pheasant tails, including a PT nymph tied with an ostrich herl thorax. I tied a few up, using dyed brown ostrich herl, and they worked very well. I have been tying them that way ever since. Another variation that I use sometimes is a short emerging wing of white Zelon or Neer Hair.
Steve
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went”-Will Rogers
I usually just use different colored dubbings on the thorax. Cream/yellow work perticularly well.
Hey, you should check out some of Rick Zieger’s articles in the Panfish Archive:
[url=http://www.flyanglersonline.com/features/panfish/archive.html:8c5fa]http://www.flyanglersonline.com/features/panfish/archive.html[/url:8c5fa]
The PTN is one of his favorite flies.
I really like the look of them with a ribbing of wine colored wire personally. I have used Ice Dub instead of herl as well.
-Erik
almost all of the PT’s I tie have a flashback instead of the traditional pheasant tail. Every now and then I tie a soft hackle on as well.
Take care everyone and cya around. Mark
Sometimes I will use beads, either glass or metal, for the thorax.
Also a flashback, or soft hackle, and the “Double Magic” tying technique described by the late Gary LaFontaine which blends antron with pheasant tail fibers in a dubbing loop.