Turkey tail

[UC Steve]

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Here's a Knekestorparen tied with the buff tipped mottled brown secondary Gunnar Johnson describes. You don't find many of these on a turkey, with minimal to no black bar, so I save them for this pattern when I come across them.

[Smuggler]

This has me intrigued, to say the least. Good stuff.

[William Anderson]

Steve, that's a beautiful pattern. The versions I tied some time ago after seeing Stefan (daringduffer) tie his have a distinct white tag to a black body. I much prefer this more subtle variation. I tried to tie some of these and found my turkey tails were plentiful but any with this distinct top edge were gone. I'll have to find a few more. That's hard to believe if you could see the feathers in my space. I did manage a few black gnats with bodies twisted with Cardinal Pearsall's (darker than red, lighter then claret) and crow's wing, crow's tail, dyed pheasant tail and a couple with magpie tail. I don't know that I'll get pics of them but at some point I'll post them for comparison. Such a great fly.

[Tom Smithwick]

I like the looks of that also. It looks like a good all around early season pattern, and I also suspect it might work during a hatch of the early brown stonefly. Maybe worth a try with some glassier looking dun or dun grizzly hackle, too? Can we get a video of a native speaker pronouncing the name:)

[wsbailey]

You can do text to speech on this site which includes Swedish: http://www.acapela-group.com/ It obviously can't compare to an actual human voice.

[Old Hat]

It might be fair to the Knekestorparen's originator to say that the original pattern actually calls for a mottled secondary with buff tip, not the black-banded primary shown here. The body of Knekestorparen is mottled brown with a buff tip.

Actually, and I may be wrong as I don't use a lot of turkey, but I believe the feather shown is not a secondary or primary but a tail feather.

[Tom Smithwick]

Thanks for the heads up on the site, BIll. It ought to make for some interesting looks if anyone asks what I just hooked the fish on. BTW, I bought a couple tins of wax from Tenkarabum. I'm just starting to play with it, but it seems excellent. Thanks for making it available.
Carl, I also believe it is a tail feather pictured. I found a similar matched pair in my stash that I used for hopper wings and the like. It never occurred to me that the tip portion could be used, so they are unmolested, but won't be for long.

[redsedge]

I have been most intrigued by this thread, especially Steve's comment that Johnson called for a "mottled secondary with buff tip, not the black banded primary shown here." Do turkey tails have secondaries?
Recently I was most generously given a copy of Gunnar Johnson's Med Fluga (With Fly) by Stefan (daring duffer.) I have been translating bits of it including a chapter entitled Three Favorites. Here is a pertinent passage:

"The second favorite, Knekestorparen, is named after a home water. It consists of only two materials in addition to hook and tying thread. The body is wrapped with a narrow section fibers from a dark brown turkey tail feather. These feathers have white tips. I bind the fibers with the white end at the hook bend and then wind forward. I get a dark body with white finish. This has the same function as the tip of the Black and Peacock. It gives the fish a point of reference for the take, the dark body is visible against a light background or the sky above the water surface, while the white part stands out against the dark background. Knekestorparen uses the same sparse hackle from a black chicken neck." (As the B&P, I assume.)

The passage was accompanied by an illustration of a slip just cut from the tip of a turkey feather which has a light tip followed by a black section which is the followed by a mottled section.
Steve, would you be able to post a picture of the feather you used to tie the fly? As I said, I am most intrigued.
Cheers,
Jim

[UC Steve]

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Carl, of course it is a tail feather. By 'secondary', I mean a secondary tail feather taken from the base of the fan. When you buy turkey tail, you are usually getting tail primaries from the outer fan. The example came from a Merriam turkey that lived in the woods behind our place. There are a lot of them & roadkills are frequent. I am out of the prime feathers with no black bar, yet this example is perfectly good, & I would allow a feather showing a bit more of the dark bar. When twisted the bar shrinks to a color spot.

[UC Steve]

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Here is one twisted on brown thread. The feather I used is identical to the example I posted. As you can see, the barring is absorbed into the body. I also like this hackled with brahma hen. Above, when I say "no black bar", I mean no stand-out black band at the tip.

Here is the Swedish article on Knekestorparen. As described & illustrated (look closely), there is no discernible black band at the tip of the tail feather section being tied in. http://www.rackelhanen.se/eng/10469.htm