Duck feather jig tutorial

I was tying a bunch of these yesterday and thought I would take some pictures of how I make them. Materials used were drake mallard flank feathers, Krinkle Mirror flash, rabbit hair and 8/0 Fl.Orange UNI-Thread. I start the thread at the head and wrap half way down before I clip thread and use thread that I clipped and double that as well so there are three strands of this thread trailing out the back of the jig. This thread glows under uv light and gives bait that injured bait fish look. #2 Tie in the krinkle mirror flash at the head using about four strands and double it up. #3 Turn jig and with hook facing up slide first feather over the top and tie in with the feathers spine pointed straight as possible along hook shank. Turn over and add second feather. Add rabbit, hackle or flash and tie in at throat and tie off. I will add more details later. Attachment 481394Attachment 481395Attachment 481396Attachment 481397Attachment 481398Attachment 481399

Here are the materials used for this jig plus pictures of the rest of the jigs I tied yesterday morning. Attachment 481402Attachment 481403Attachment 481404Attachment 481405Attachment 481406

Thanks Jim. Great pics and instruction.

They look amazing

Thank you Jim for the write up. Great info and pic's for sure. With your permission, I'm going to put the write-up in my personal jig instruction/recipe book. Thank you sir.

Awesome as always Jim. Good tutorial and pics. You make the best duck feather jigs. Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful work ! This definitely is the best bunch of guys on the internet .I love how you show your process for tying that jig .I have been around so many people that everything is a big secret and won't show anyone anything or help anyone . people on here are happy to help out I love it !

Fantastic!!!

Those jigs are over the top!

Very nice, thanks Jim.

Thanks for sharing this for us. Beautiful work for sure.

If I had only one material that I could tie with it would be duck feathers. I tie sizes from a #12 - 1/0 with them. They are lethal on all species. I've been tying them for over 30 years, first time I used one I caught over 100 fish that day, fish ate all the feathers off the jig and 30 years later they are still catching plenty. Hoping others will try making these and using them, they work great for me. Any questions just ask, I'll answer them. I remove the most of the curl of the feather by clipping the fuzzy, thick spine portion off than storing the feathers in a qt size baggie and squeezing all the air out. After a couple weeks they straighten out and they are easier to tie in.

One question, Jim, How many feather are yo putting in the baggie. It would seem with them curled if too many were in it some would end up folded in half when the air is removed. Any problem with that, or do they mostly flatten out with out much problems. Thanks for sharing your beautiful duck feather jigs and how you do them with us.

Awesome work Jim! I love seeing all of your creations


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I fill baggie about 2/3 full before squeezing the air out and then store them in a clear plastic shoe box with the rest of my duck feathers. After a couple weeks they are ready for tying. A faster method is squeezing the air out and put a couple books on top of them. I like a slight curve in my feathers. Some feathers do get folded over on itself but very few and they are still usable.

Those are exceptional ties.

Thank you Jim

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Nice Jim!! You and Sonny gave me a lot of pointers when I first started tying with feathers and dyeing them too!!

We used to tear stoker trout up with size 14 hornbergs w starling cheeks. Very similar to those jigs. Those'll kill em.