Thread: Pheasant Feathers, now what?

Nice! Look you can even use the tail by pulling off some of the barbules and using them as a tail. There are lots of things you can do with it. I will try to find a pic of what I described as I know that I have at least one I did that way. Just use your imagination and look at some flies and how they use them. Places like FAOL where they have lessons and you can just look through them to find ones they use Pheasant and copy that on a jig.

Fly Anglers OnLine, Your Complete Internet Flyfishing Resource.
Click on Fly Tying, then Beginning Tying and then intermediate and on to advanced.

Also this place, but you may have to register, I am not sure, but loads of pic of flies and what materials they used. You can even search by materials in their data base. I tried search by materials and didn't work right, but found another way to look and found this for you.
Fly Patterns with tag Pheasant
Fly Tying

Skip

Dang had to go through 12 pages of my photobucket, but found it, LOL!



Because it's all FL materials I decided to take a pick under a Black light too.

Too bad you didn't skin out the whole bird! Once washed up and tacked out with borax over it they have lots of usable feathers. There's an article by Terry Heleckson on their uses but since his death his daughter has finished changing his page. I might have it in .pdf format at home. I'll check tonight at home

Originally Posted by Fatman

Too bad you didn't skin out the whole bird! Once washed up and tacked out with borax over it they have lots of usable feathers. There's an article by Terry Heleckson on their uses but since his death his daughter has finished changing his page. I might have it in .pdf format at home. I'll check tonight at home

Well I guess I will just have to get another one! I am going to skip the final deer season here in IA and get out with my old dogs more before the season ends. Hopefully I will have more for the table and the vice!

Absolutely keep entire skin of anything you get that is legal to keep and use. Always best if you can keep it on the hide!

Very good tip by Fatman! Always use the Borax and most of the time use Salt, but I have never done a bird so I am unsure on them, but even the little squirrel tails I get will get Borax and salt and let dry well.

Even things like the Bugger Packs of saddle hackle I have from Whiting is still on a piece of hide.

Also nice picture of the dog, gun and bird. Maybe next time turn phone sideways and get all the dog in pic? Still nice pic as I love seeing dongs int he field with game.

Skip

A wonderful picture of the dog and bird and what I believe is a Browning A-5. Could be some others too but that's what it reminded me of. I love flushing birds best but flying targets like Dove and others get my attention too. Enjoy one or two for me if you can. They only exist in a freezer here.

Nice lab. I had a yellow lab myself who was quite a duck retriever. You will get a lot of good memories from that relationship down the road.

Thanks for the kind words about the old girl, we definitely have made a lot of memories so far. She turned 8 in October and has been a duck and pheasant hunting fool her entire life. I couldn't tell you the number of birds I have dropped over her. The past few years I have been spending more time in the trees looking for deer and I feel pretty bad leaving her at home. I think I am going to bird hunt the rest of this season.

That is an old Browning Auto 5. My uncle passed it on to me when he moved from TX to FL. It is a pre-WW2 model and I believe it was made in the late 20's. At some point it had a different butt stock attached, re-blued and modified to accept 2 3/4" length 16 ga shells. It probably isn't worth much, but it is a fine field gun and a family gun so it isnt going anywhere...aside from the field!

Couldn't find a pdf on the article, but I'll root around in my printouts and when I find it I'll bring it to work and scan it. It had a pic of each feather and what they could be used for.