Yesterday I wanted to tie some wet flies that use wings of white-tipped turkey tail. I went to my local fly shop and picked up a package which contained two whole tail feathers. The flies I was tying were on #12 hooks. To my surprise, it seemed that I could only get a couple of strips out of each feather in which the white tip at the end of the feather was the right size in relation to the rest of the strip. Is this a common problem, or did I just pick bad feathers?
Since the feather has only so much of a white tip, its you get what you get. Wish there was more.
Kinda like buying duck or goose quills. Theres only so much of those feathers that are good enough quality for wet fly wings.
I have found full feathers that are white from craft stores. AC Moore and Micheals usually stock them. I’m not sure if that helps, or if the pattern calls for just the tip of the wings to be white. You may also be able to find Snow goose wings which should be mostly white. I’ve never looked for them, but someone should have them.
Good Luck
Yes, that’s right. Just, the tip of the wing. Maybe about 15-20% of the wing is white, the rest dark. If you look at the photos posted by Normand above, only a couple of segments worth of quill material near the edge of the feather would have the right amount of white. Once you get away from the edge, there is way too much white. At least for smaller flies. I just wonder what a commercial tier that had to tie dozens of these would do. I tried trimming down the white part with scissors, but it just doesn’t look right. Someone else suggested taking a brown marking pen and coloring part of of white section with it. That’s probably the best idea I’ve heard so far.
That, or get to know a few turkey hunters, that should enlarge your inventory adequately.