I was just playing at the vice and put this together, which I was pleased with. It’s a fairly basic wet-fly construction, though I don’t know if it’s an official “pattern”. The dressing is :
hook: wet fly, size 12
thread: Uni 8/0 Olive (waxed with bee’s wax)
tail: golden pheasant tippets
body: fibres from a golden pheasant body feather (yellow)
rib : gold wire
thorax : olive wool dubbed
wing: cock ringneck pheasant quill slips
hackle: snipe
I should have, but didn’t, put some cement/glue down before wrapping the PP fibre body as these tend to be a bit on the fragile side and trout teeth can cut them easily. Still, they have a great colour to them so I use them for such things.
I like it a lot! With that nice even gold rib I don’t think the fragile feathers will take that much of a beating. I must say that, on my screen, the body looks brown and green with a silver rib. Those colors look pretty good too. Finally, a use for those two Golden Pheasants skins I have in a drawer.
REE, the colours look that way on my screen too. The GP body feathers get brown towards the stem, so you get a brown “towards yellow” type of body. Also, the underside of the feather is darker; on the red feathers the underside is orangeish, so wrapping these for bodies gives great “tones” and subtle variation. I know the fish probably don’t care, but they sure look good to the fisherman!
And Tyronefly, the wax does change the hue a wee bit (more so with silk thread), but it also can keep the thread from slipping on the hook when tying, so if you tie in a couple tight wraps to hold marterial in place, they often seem to hold a bit better. Also, the wax hardens a bit so it sort of works like glue to hold the fibres down. It’s not really necessary, but I sometimes like to use it. Generally the wool dubs fine without it.
I’ll try and put a FOTW together on it. I’ve not fished it, and so far have only tied the one as described in this thread (although I’ve used the fibres as body material before; in both nymphs and dries).
Lotech, if you do put one together and get a chance to fish it I would love to know how you fared with it and how it held up.
Thanks Andy! I’ve really enjoyed Trout (finished reading it last week). Having some fun tying up a few patterns. I’ve submitted this as FOTW, though it may be awhile before it shows up. Let me know how it holds up.
