Today was opening day here and my son and I shot quite a few birds. We have been doing this for a lot of years and I have this problem with throwing away perfectly good materials… I saved the CDC from about a dozen birds… we had 16 total to clean… I started to put the zip-lock sandwich bag in with all the others from however many years it has been… and realized I need help!
So the first one that claims the baggie gets it… PM or post here… first date stamp gets it either way.
The CDC is a fairly uniform DARK dun… All of it is dark colored. The species in the bag include shoveler, widgeon, pintail, scaup, goldeneye, and gadwall. These are mostly young birds and not fully mature.
What you will not get is prime CDC as long as your arm… There may be a few non-CDC feathers in the bag… There may be a bloody feather or two (I think I got most of those out) and it will not be light enough to color (unless it is bleached) any other way. A few birds did have quite nice stuff so there is some better “stuff” in the bag. Especially for slightly smaller stuff <12 there will be hundreds of flies worth of CDC.
I put a little Borax in the bag to ensure the CDC dries and nothing bad grows in it. It should shake out easily and will “polish” the CDC a bit.
Would be tickled if a youngster got the bag… but first dibs is the rule, even if you are a geezer!
All I ask is that you pass a little good will down the line; help another learn to tie, pass on some materials you have in excess, or help a little old lady across the street.
art
I’m just jealous you guys get to get into the ducks this early! A dozen ducks worth of CDC should have filled up a sandwich size zip lock nicely… definitely worth snatching up if you tie with CDC!
CDC is one of the most over looked material, IMO. I just started tying with it three years ago and now it has become one of my fav’s along with Aust possum.
Do you notice much difference in the feathers between species? I always assumed the stuff we get commercially is from a mallard, but you know what they say about when you assume…
zerosleep
I have some bad news and some good news for you… The bad news is you were beat to the draw by an earlier request via PM.
The good news is my son and I just came home with ten more ducks. Send me your mailing address by PM and I will get the second bag out to you in tomorrow’s mail.
art
Allan
I suspect they are just white mallards… Because I have seen pictures of them picking CDC commercially. Domestic mallards can be some monster birds.
art
QK
I would trade all the early stuff for the opportunity to shoot fully colored-up birds… We do get lots of sea ducks and get them in great plumage, especially harlequins. And that starts to make up for the lack of woodies and gadwalls in full dress.
Harlequins have some of the best soft hackles imaginable in a true blue dun, BTW…
art
Forgot to mention… This early AM we stopped on the hill overlooking the lake we were going to hunt and looked it over carefully with binoculars. We wanted to know where the birds were and to see if anyone else was hunting the lake. Because it is a big stop-over spot for the really big swans we like to know how many are there and where they are.
My son immediately said there was a huge black bear in the inlet stream… Turned out it had a very big hump and a brown hide… Just a brown bear. Then her two-year-old cub came out and they fished briefly in the salmon-filled stream.
Not an ordinary way to start a duck hunt by most standards I suppose and one more good reason to stop and look things over.
art
Gadwall flank is one of my absolute favorite tying materials… I hoard as much as possible! Many crappie and bluegills have been caught because of it mixed with a few strands of copper Krystal flash and some peacock herl…
I usually do not get all worked up about materials or patterns from the standpoint of what works, versus what REALLY works… But you could find your success in Alaska might mirror what you found busting bluegills…
I like gadwall for spey flies, especially. And here is the sad part… I have never killed a gadwall with barred flanks. I have certainly killed them in triple digit numbers, too.
When fishing with Marc Petitjean some years ago someone shot a duck (illegally) up stream of us. As it drifted down we snaffled it. Here is a photo I took of him showing where the CdC feathers are located.
As he showed you are lucky to get 3 or 4 really good feathers off a wild bird. His CdC comes from commercial ducks produced for the table. Farmyard ducks will produce better CdC for tying as they do not preen themselves as much as birds on water do. Collecting the oil in their bill damages the feathers (inconsiderate of the birds I know).
You should still get usable feathers from your wild birds. The ones from that one were. Apparently swan CdC is really amazing stuff. If you can get it.
Your wild CdC will be fine best of all its a free bonus. You’ll have to do the sorting yourself but that is probably the largest part of the cost of commercial CdC.
Don’t forget the very best CdC pattern ever. Our very own Hans’ CdC and Elk. The only fly I have ever stopped fishing with as I felt it unfair on the fish.
