Swords & Starling (Tutorial)

[hankaye]

Back home in Utah there is a feller in the town where my Ladyfreind lives that has a small flock of Pea birds. Both hens and cocks.....hummmmmmmmmmm

[letumgo]

Don't tempt me like that...

[hankaye]

Welllllll... he just kinda lets'em roam around on their own. Sometimes I've almost hit one or 2 in the road... just sayin.....

[letumgo]

So your saying we would actually be performing a public service by getting these potentially hazardous birds off the road...

...the Good Samaritan angle...

I like it!

[hankaye]

Ya might sorta, kinda, maybe say so..... wouldn't mind any tire(tyer fer the brits), tread marks would ya?


jest askin'.......

[letumgo]

Rick (lonewolf) - Is this the pattern you were asking about? Or were you asking about my larger steelhead flies that use peacock sword fibers for winging material?

http://www.flytyingforum.com/pattern9345.html
http://www.flytyingforum.com/pattern9221.html

I find the best way to form the wing on the steelhead flies is to clip a small section from a left and right hand sword (leave the fibers attached to the stem). Now match the sides (shiny sides out) and tying them in like you would the wing on a wet fly (pinch wrap). Leaving the fibers on the stem helps keep their orientation. Another way to do it is clip the fibers from the stem and roll them between your thumb and forefinger. THe sword fibers will then be uniformly pointing in many directions. Either way works fine for fishing flies.

[Ruard]

Beautiful pictures and flies Ray. I have somewhere a pair of swordfeathers look if I can see any difference between a normal herl and the herl from a sword.

Thank you for posting the links.


Greeting

[willowhead]

Fantastic work Ray.....Sword bodies are definately cool.....as long as your hook size is rather small............and NOT by my regular standards. Normally when i say "small," i mean anything below a size 1/0. Even that is small. Medium is from 3/0 to 6/0 and then we start talkin' big. And that's only if we've got extended shanks.
Those flies are gorgeous.....and should do very well fished off (bouncin'), the bank from mid-stream, or dead drifted directly down stream, or quartering for that matter. Good luck.

[willowhead]

Cool to look at this thread again...........Dougsden..........give Charlie Craven a call in Colorado. He's usually got real nice swords for 50 cents each. Just google 'em. He's in Arvell i think it is (only been there 2 or 3 times).....just 10 minutes outta Denver. i musta grabed up bout 50 of 'em when i was there. Good quality for that price.........that would be a DUH! He's one of the only fly shops that far east, that has things you usually have to be litterally "out west' to find........Spey fly stuff. He's got the bleeched and dyed Peacock herl too.........bunch a colors.....in case your interested.