Furnace or Coch y Bondhu

[ronr]

I recently watched a Zoom presentation by the Central Oregon Fly Tyers Guild and was surprised to see the presenter tie and discuss the Coch y Bondhu. He also mentioned his preference for swinging soft hackles. Most of these folks are experienced tyers and this fellow shared a couple very good tips for tying in the oval tinsel for the tag and the ostrich plume which he wrapped over the peacock body. I'd not seen either of these techniques used in any of the videos I could find afterwards tying this fly.

I also recently came in possession of some old tying materials. Included in that stash was some quite old hackle feathers strung with string. Some of those are beautiful furnace feathers which have all the qualities and colors of the coch y bondhu feathers pictured in Robert Smith's book. Everything I'd read said these feathers were pretty much impossible to come by these days. But, I'm wondering if any of you feather experts out there can tell me how long ago they disappeared from normal sources.

With that preamble, I had to tie a few with these furnace feathers. They have the beautiful black centers with the deep reddish orange outer sections and vaguely appear to have the slightest dark tips. My lousy camera does not pick up the colors well but here are a couple of my versions.

One is tied on a wide gape barbless competition hook, and the other a size 14 TMC 5262 size 14.

I can't find any reference to what hooks they should be tied on, but since they are supposed to be beatle flies, I think the shorter hook may be more traditional. I think in the south, we'd call the coch y bondhu beatle the june bug....

[Roadkill]

Put aside a dozen for me to test!

[ronr]

you know I can't tie a dozen....... but I will tie some up for you...

[davidriley]

In the UK we have access to Indian hen capes which are very reasonably priced, plentiful and have a variety of cape colourings. I only tie wet flies and am not too fussed about top quality or if the cape is a true Furnace or Coch y Bonddhu or badger etc but they have a good range of hackle sizes and the capes tend to be near enough to represent what cape they are supposed to be. Quite often a dealer will sell a bargain collection

However if you are tying for show or want the satisfaction of producing a perfect tying of a particular fly then they will not be for you.
Most of the flies I tie using hen cape hackles are Indian hen capes.

These are what I am talking about

https://www.lathkill.com/capes-hackles/ ... capes.html

[Roadkill]

Thanks Ron, for the feathers and inspiration!

i tied up some per Frances Frances with the peacock and ostrich twisted together...
RIMG2470 by William Lovelace, on Flickr