Messing about at the vice

So I was poking around in a drawer full of feathers and came across a packet containing the breast of a pheasant. I seem to recall buying this two or three years ago but the cellophane wrapping was unopened. The breast feathers are beautifully marked, a mix of dark brown and black barring with creamy coloured tips. In size they could make a good hackle on hook sizes ranging from 10’s up to 6’s, ideal for salmon lough flies. An idea for a Katie variation sprang to mind so I set about messing at the vice for  wee while.

Using black tying silk I tied in one of the breast feathers and a black cock hackle then ran the thread down to the bend of a size 6 B175. Here I tied in a short silver tag and a tail made of a golden pheasant topping with a tuft of glo-brite no.4 floss. A rib of oval silver tinsel was caught before I dubbed a black fur body.

Palmering the cock hackle and tying it in with the rib was bog standard but I wanted to add a couple of features. A short beard hackle consisting of some blue dyed guinea fowl was whipped in under the hook then half-a-dozen cock pheasant tail fibres dyed black went on top of the hook. Now I could wind the head hackle, giving it five full turns. I’m pretty happy with the result and pretty confident it will take a salmon or two on Carrowmore this season.