Peacock and Partridge.

[DUBBN]

I believe my Partridge skin has given its last. Time to head down to Cabelas and Sportsmans Warehouse and buy a new one. Every time I look in to my fly boxes I find room for these. The past few years this pattern has been very good to me.

[Premerger]

What a beauty!
That's a fish taker for sure. Nicely tied.

[William Anderson]

Thanks for this, Wayne. I'm trying to load a few boxes with just essentials for this season and one is very important and apparently I've gone through my stash.

[redietz]

Good stuff. I guarantee those would be good around here in about 6 weeks.

[Old Hat]

Those would be good anywhere at anytime.

[paparex]

Dubbin,

What sizes of this pattern do you usually fish? I have found that I tie and fish mostly 14 and 16. But with this fly I have gone down to 20. I'm not sure that the 20 is better than the 18 or even 14, but I've been influenced by dry fly sizes. Syl Nemes wrote that he thought that smaller wasn't necessarily better. What has your experience been with this fly?

[PhilA]

Nice fly ... beautifully tied and very trouty.

The pattern is quite similar to a classic Welsh fly, the Coch-y-Bonddu, whose roots date to the 1700s as the Shorn Fly. "Coch-y-bonddu" translates roughly to "red and black", which are colors both of the beetle the fly imitates and of the chicken hackle used to dress the fly (red gamecock with a black list and margin).

Lots of beetles are aquatic and spend their entire life cycle under water. A plump dark body with a collar of soft hackle -- such as the Peacock and Partridge -- probably imitates most of them. Courtney Williams described the Coch-y-Bonddu as, "Wet or dry, and at any time of the season, it is always a good pattern to try on a strange river."

[Old Hat]

I was thinking the same ThirdMeadow. Thanks for the added tidbit of history.

Curious Wayne...are you hiding weight under that peacock body?

[DUBBN]

Dubbin,

What sizes of this pattern do you usually fish? I have found that I tie and fish mostly 14 and 16. But with this fly I have gone down to 20. I'm not sure that the 20 is better than the 18 or even 14, but I've been influenced by dry fly sizes. Syl Nemes wrote that he thought that smaller wasn't necessarily better. What has your experience been with this fly?

I have tied and fished these down to 20's, but, 10'and 12's are my standard size.

Curious Wayne...are you hiding weight under that peacock body?

No, but I do make a 2 to 3 wrap tag from the wire before wrapping it through the fly.

[novabass]

Good looking flies here Wayne!