Headless Pheasant Tail Soft Hackle (Tutorial / SBS)

[letumgo]

Mark (willowhead) - Making it "headless", was not my main point with this pattern. I realize that there are other ways of getting similar results, albeit with a thread head. I love playing around with different techniques and often find wrapping the fly backwards, instead of forwards, the process of tying can be more efficient. In this case, I loved the way the tying thread secures the pheasant tail fibers and forms the segmentation/ribbing all in the same step. By tying in the PT fibers first, and then the hackle, I was able to eliminate the head (ignoring the hook eye) and I could wrap the hackle through the thorax (flymph-like). Eliminating the thread head also gains roughly one hook-eye more room on the hook shank. So, for a given hook size, the pattern looks slightly longer and more slender.

Functionally there may not be any real advantages to the fly, but it is always good to have additional techniques to achieve ones desired results...

[willowhead]

Thankx for the explanation...........much appreciated..............very interesting.....................always good to understand another tyers viewpoints bout such things................
i sure wish you'd could of been at the CFFC&M this past Sat. Ted Patlan was INCREDABLE as always...........

[Norm Frechette]

heres a similar tie

http://flytyingnewandold.blogspot.com/2 ... ernal.html

[hankaye]

Norm Frechette, Howdy;

You have an excellent blog going. Very nice sbs. An the fly is beautiful.
I'm still a begginer at all of this fly stuff... and it made sense to me.
That means two things;
I have had excellent teachers here at Flymph.com. Ya'll know who you are...
You have an easy to understand way with words and photos.

Thank You;

hank

[willowhead]

hank.....ENOUGH already with this "beginner" stuff..............your an intermediate now...............so cool it with the beginner stuff...........we're expecting a LOT more of you than that. Thank you very much.....

[hankaye]

w-h, Howdy;

Still feel like one compared to the rest of this crew...

hank

[willowhead]

Trust me hank..........i "Know" the feelin'..............to one degree or the other....................that feelin' may always be with you...........because there is so much to learn................and always will be...............but "three little words".....GET OVER IT. The thing is, to stay at the vice............just tye dozens, hundreds, and thousands of flies............then tye some more. Every waking minute you don't have something more pressing you must do.........TYE!
Aint nothin' to it...............just put in the time...........thass all. VERY simple.

and not to be rude.....but btw.....no more dumb comparisons..... THINK like an intermediate and you'll be an intermediate........along with putting in the time....................as soon as you do that............you can begin to look forward to your future as a tyer.............THINK design.....and construction, and application, and look at all of it from more than one perspective.............think bugs and fish............but also thing colors and shapes and form........keep a VERY open mind..........study constantly.................read and watch videos.........over and over and over and over again............then some more. When your watching videos, keep materials in your hands...........tye pheasent tail legs while you watch..............prepare (soft hackle) feathers in different sizes while you watch.....etc., etc., etc.........kill two birds with one stone at all times..............time is always ticking by and it's always later than you think. GO!

[hankaye]

w-h, Howdy;

I think I understand about the ..never loosing the feeling part.
The rest I can understand the whys of, it's the gettin down to doin it that is the difficult part.

As for the dumb comparisons .... that's apart of me. Sorta like the way you are always talking about who you know, met, or tyed with.
Those are a part of what we are as well as the interest in fly tying. I don't live, eat, and breath the art of tying. I do enjoy it and am learning as I can.
You probably have more cubic footage of tying storage space than I have to live in.
That's all.

hank

PS. I do watch the videos and am practicing...

[willowhead]

Good on ya hank........i just want to inspire you........to spur you on..........to drive you nutz if i have to, to get you to take it as far as you can.......
fly tyin' saved my life..............so nothin' makes me happier than to see others find the same level of joy from it as i do..........
this is my 19th year tyin' flies.....and i highly doubt i have another 19 left to tye......so i gotta make the most of what i have..........hope you do too.

[hankaye]

w-h, Howdy;

I workin' on it .....

hank