FLYMPH FORUM

My daughter borrowed the use of my camera for a few minutes yesterday, and when I reviewed the images she added to the memory card, the below one was one of them.



Looking at the feathers I could not help but wonder why we make so little use of the female mallard in our tying? Especially the breast and flank feathers look to have much potential with these earthy colors.

Your thoughts?

Cheers,
Hans W

Ah, Hans my friend, you have touched on a subject very close to home here. .
A certain gathering of forum members due to take place in a few days should gleam a few answers for you with a little luck.

I harvest and use plenty of Mallard hen feathers and the earthy tones you note are of use for many of our standard patterns that call for soft "brown" hackles. The main problem I see is perhaps the feathers are a little on the large size for wrapped shoulder hackles on most of the common trout sized flies, unless you target the upper neck area for selection. Indeed the head feathers can be of use for #18-20ish sizes, but the feather stem is pretty fragile.
The individual feathers from the breast area could be a good mottled hen sub, not that mottled hen is uncommon and needs subbed- but you get the general idea. The back feathers are a lot darker tipped than the breast and more "spade" shaped.
Why the hen Mallard feathers were not seen in historic patterns the way Mallard drake was is beyond me. OK, you do not get the variety on the hen you get from the drake, no bronze or barred flank- but you do get the same colouration in the wing bands of blue/green with the white bars, so hen feathers may have been used for those few patterns that call for wings made from those feathers, but apart from those and the CDC feathers the two genders share very little in common.
To me they make ideal tail, wing, hackle and even body colours for a lot of fly imitation patterns- especially nymph and pupal stages of aquatic life. There is a bag aproximately 8X12X18" stuffed full of Mallard hen feathers in my tying area..... would you like a few?

Excellent piece of photography on your daughters part, well done to her.

Beautiful photo! Hans, I have to agree with the both of you. Although I have never tried them, they sure do look good to me.

In the book "French Fishing Flies" the author writes about a fly created by Henri Bresson. The fly is called Peute (Ugly in English) and is made of two parts - yellow thread and female mallard neck feather. It represents a caddis pupa. Here is a video of one being tied:

https://vimeo.com/21084004

Bill

wsbailey, Howdy;

Thanks for the video. Surprising how easy it was to follow
the French narrative.

hank

In the book "French Fishing Flies" the author writes about a fly created by Henri Bresson. The fly is called Peute (Ugly in English) and is made of two parts - yellow thread and female mallard neck feather. It represents a caddis pupa.

I meant to say breast feather.
Bill

Bob Clouser if a big fan of hen mallard flank feathers for his famous "Clouser Crayfish" pattern. Perhaps that makes it a wingless wet fly? (kidding)

I will be bringing a LOT of hen mallard feathers to the Roscoe event, to share with all of the attendees. You folks are going to love this stuff. Beautiful muted coloration. (Thanks Jeff!)

No worries Ray, as I said I have a huge bag of the stuff myself and it is getting added to weekly. What you got is hardly a birds worth and not well sorted- so it will be a "get what you can grab" sorry folks.

From what I can see both Veniard and Wapsi offer Mallard hen in packs of either flank or breast feathers- although I have never seen any for sale here. There are a couple of NZ patterns that call for Mallard hen, most are Lure (streamer) patterns and not that popular. I guess brown hen capes are easily enough found and cover much of the same area and so were used instead of a feather most often harvested from wild stock rather than farmed domestic stock which can be had in greater numbers and year round?

hankaye wrote: Surprising how easy it was to follow the French narrative.

I especially liked the fact that the French for "whip finish" is "whip finish".

wsbailey wrote:In the book "French Fishing Flies" the author writes about a fly created by Henri Bresson. The fly is called Peute (Ugly in English) and is made of two parts - yellow thread and female mallard neck feather. It represents a caddis pupa.

I meant to say breast feather.
Bill

If you read the French literature about the Peute they use a "plume de flanc" and I don't know why R.A.Chino has translated this in feather of the breast.( the french word flanc is the same as flank or side) Mr Bresson says: plume the flanc from under the wing ( but that in french naturally)

http://books.google.nl/books?id=rZUUVQk ... te&f=false

The recipe of the fly is on page 33 of the same book.

Les francais speak of a plume de flanc de cane (or canne) And I think the translation of this has to be: a feather of the flanc of a female mallard

Greeting