duck hackle spiders

[CreationBear]

I noticed that Nikolas had used a mallard feather on his great quill pattern, so it got me to thinking about alternatives to classic, "upland" gamebird hackles. Here a few with shoveller drake breast feathers (the abdomens I snagged from Ray's f̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶i̶n̶t̶ ̶p̶a̶l̶m̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶l̶o̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶e̶a̶r̶t̶ ̶t̶e̶c̶h̶n̶i̶q̶u̶e̶
UV resin/mylar tinsel experiments. )







It will be interesting to see how these move in the water: on dry land at least I'd probably call these woodcook or snipe if I didn't know any better, so it might make for an interesting sub.

[Izaak]

The results look great! The body colors are terrific.

[narcodog]

They look like Irish flies.

[Mataura mayfly]

They do remind me of the Dabbler style Irish flies, they use bronze Mallard barbs rolled around the shank, not a wrapped feather. Lawrence Finney has a nice video on the technique on his website.

Very nice looking ties though. I use duck a lot, because it is easily gathered here in the Winter. Trouble is finding small feathers for say under #14 ties. The barbs are usually fatter/bulkier as well. But the do move well in the water, if a lttle inclined to "knit" back together.

[Kelly L.]

Nice flies. I love duck feathers...they are wonderful in fly tying.

[CreationBear]

Thanks guys--it's interesting too that duck feathers have a sheen to them, almost like that produced by the scales of a butterfly's wing...of course whether that's a trigger or a turn-off remains to be seen.

[Kelly L.]

Sheen is always a good thing for me. A duck feather is so versatile. I especially love all the flank feathers on a duck.

[letumgo]

Jon - Wholly smokes, those are incredible! You sure know how to wiggle your big toe! Beautifully tyed flies, every single one. The photographs are amazing too.

(I loved the Kill Bill movies )

[CreationBear]

Kelly--I'm a big fan of duck flank as well, though the fibers really tend to marry if you don't burn them first--interesting that for these breast feathers at least, that's not the case--despite the pronounced barbicels.

BTW Ray, Tarantino usually manages to stick in a reference to his hometown of Knoxville in most of his movies, but I'm not remembering if that was the case in KB, vols. I & II.

[redietz]

Interesting that you should bring up duck at this particular moment. I tied my Tups for the swap with hackle from the coverts of mallard wings. It's a somewhat lighter dun than waterhen, and has (to my eye) more movement than poultry hackle.