Tying off Peacock Chenille?

[CreationBear]

Looking at Old Hat's "palmer" pattern reminded me of a problem I've been struggling with lately: what's the best way to tie off a peacock chenille when you want a fairly robust body? A rope of more than, say, five herls or so requires a pretty big bight in your thread, not to mention the thread wraps necessary to "tidy up." Add a wire rib counter-wrapped and thus coming up from the "wrong" side of the hookshank and I at least wind up with a less-than-ideal "landing area" for my hackle.

Any thoughts? I'm fairly competent at tying in hair wings that allow you to lift the butt ends a little at a time and sneak in a wrap or two, but I'm having a hard time trying to translate that to peacock herls.

[redietz]

That's an excellent question, and one that bothers me as well.

I suppose one way to go about is to use fewer herls. If you're looking for a nice fat body, you could build it up first with an underbody of floss (and it sounds like you're already using an underbody of lead) and use two or three herls instead of more than five. Using herl with longer flue would help reduce the number herls needed as well.

Alternatively, you could forget the "chenille" idea altogether (reinforce with wire instead). You could then wrap and tie off the herls one or two at time (I haven't tried this, so I have no idea if it would work). Plus, if you're not twisting the herl around the thread, you can align the herls so that you're wrapping flue side out, and can use fewer herls as a result.

[tie2fish]

Here's a suggestion: Make an on-hook dubbing loop where you want the body to begin. Tie in one end of the herl strands at that point, bring the working thread forward to where you want the body to end and let it hang. Gather the loose ends of the herl strands, bring them together with the thread loop, and grab both the herl and the loop at that point with a pair of hackle pliers. Spin the hackle pliers and twist the herl strands/thread loop into a brush. Make the brush only as long as you'll need to build the body. When you finish wrapping the herl brush up the hook shank, all you'll have to tie down will be the thread from the loop. This will probably require a trial or two to find out how long the brush (i.e. herl strands) needs to be, but once you've got that down it should work fairly well.

[CreationBear]

All great suggestions, gentlemen.

Tie2fish--I like the idea of a using a dubbing brush with hackle-pliers...I've only used a dubbing hook to twist the loop, so it didn't occur to me that I could "fine tune" the length using your method.

Redietz--the underbody idea is a good one (though I'm not sure that in my hands it helps to have another step/material to flub up. ) I'm thinking too that tying in the feather by the tip might be the way to go to make the transition between hackle and body a little more seamless. BTW, I was playing around with variations of your Grouse & Herl last night:



A bit idiosyncratic no doubt--I'm going through a TMC 200 phase--call it a Grouse & Lot?

[redietz]

I'm thinking too that tying in the feather by the tip might be the way to go to make the transition between hackle and body a little more seamless.

It does. It's one of the big reasons that I always tie in by the tip.

BTW, I was playing around with variations of your Grouse & Herl last night:

A bit idiosyncratic no doubt--I'm going through a TMC 200 phase--call it a Grouse & Lot?

Grouse & Lot -- I love it!

Let me quickly point out, however, that the Grouse&Herl isn't my fly. I copied it from my local shop, which pushes it heavily. I don't know where they got it from.

[letumgo]

I started using one of the Wasatch Mitch's Bobbins a couple years ago and absolutely love it for forming plump peacock herl bodies on flies. The bobbin has a little hook on the side of the bobbin cylinder which allows you to form a dubbing loop and capture the peacock herl and twist it with the tying thread. So your actually forming the peacock herl chenille with three strands of thread (2 from the dubbing loop and 1 from the tying thread). I can control the thickness of the body by adjusting the amount of twist used when forming the chenille. A tighter twist will give a fatter body. Less twist will give a thinner body.

Once the body has been wrapped, I make one wrap of thread to catch the herl chenille against the side of the hook and then let the chenille untwist. This makes it easier to form a small tye-in spot.

If you want to control the shape of the finished fly, it is easy to do, by forming an underbody with the desired shape/taper.

Generally, I use four or five herl fibers when forming the body of a fly. You could use a couple more or less, depending on the thickness you are going for.

One thing to keep in mind is that peacock herl fibers have a slight taper (thicker at the base than they are at the tip). If you are wrapping the peacock herl all the way to the base of the stem, you are tying down the thickest part. You may want to try using longer peacock herl (the taper is less noticeable on the longer herl - but the longer stuff generally has less of the little fibers along the side).

One more method I often use is to wrap the peacock herl from the from the eye of the hook towards the bend of the hook, and then over wrap it with the tying thread (no dubbing loop used). This method gives nicely uniform herl bodies, although thinner than what you are probably going for.

[CreationBear]

Ray-- thanks for the heads-up on the bobbin; sounds like a great tool. And that's a great point about wrapping eye-to-barb--I've always been happier with the taper of my flymph bodies when I capture the chenille mid-shank.

[DOUGSDEN]

Creationbear,
You just happened to have two of the finest tyers commenting on your problem with peacock, Ray and Bill. (Ray, the tool you described sounds interesting. More about this later.) Also, Dick Talleur's video/dvd on tying classic nymphs has a wonderful treatment of this when he ties a great one called the "pea-ca-bou" nymph. He does essentially the same thing as Bill (tie2fish) describes and it goes a long way in helping you to figure out the essentials of working with this amazing body material. Rays comments are spot on too especially when he talks about gauging the distance you will travel up the hook shank (the tapers on each herl) and the twisting of the rope to get thinner or thicker bodies. Both men have given you excellent advice!
Once you get the hang of working with peacock in this way, it's really quite fun and it looks soo dog-gone buggy. One small bit of advice. Don't fret when once in a while one of the herls breaks off esp. at the tie in point. All is not lost. Just clip the rogue partner away and keep on twisting. Can you photograph what you have done so far? We'd like to see them!
Loving that bronze peacock too,
Dougsden

[Old Hat]

I rarely use more than 3 heels to wrap a body on a soft hackle. Of course, i tie in my hackle by the stem first. This allows me to use the thicker part of the rachis to build up the thorax area. A more robuSt body just requires a bit more thread build up. With my thread just behind the hackle tie in, I wrap the herl in a rope to the thread, tie it in with two tight turns of thread, then wrap the hackle back, and tie it in with two wraps and work the thread to the front to tie off. I will say that good quality peacock makes all the difference.

Carl

[CM_Stewart]

I will say that good quality peacock makes all the difference.Carl

If you buy peacock feathers (Harline sells them as "Eyed Sticks") and clip the herl from the "stick" rather than using strung herl, you can get a surprisingly fat body from only one herl.


Please forgive the low quality cell phone photo.

Sakasa Kebari (peacock/pheasant)
Hook: Daiichi 1120 size 14
Thread: Pearsall's Gossamer HIghlander Green
Hackle: Hen Pheasant
Body: One peacock herl, tied in behind hackle, wrapped around tying thread to create a chenille, then wrapped around hook to bend.
Tag: Tying thread (whip finish at bend)