Using Golden Pheasant Feathers on Feather Wing Flies?

[ALawrence]

I am going to attempt to tie Syd Glasso's Sol Duc Dark and Walt Johnson's Deep Purple Spey. Anyhow, I am looking for any suggestions/tips for using golden pheasant feathers for the wing on these flies (size, shape, the part of the GP skin that the feathers should come from, the method for tying them on the hook, etc?). Thanks!

Regards,

Andrew

[NB Rob]

I watched a video of Mike brooks tying the 'Quillayute' a year or so ago, and I've been tying my wings this way ever since:

http://vodpod.com/watch/2821018-syd-glasso-quillayute

Feather selection is important. Building them up in this way make a very durable fishing fly.

-Rob

[ALawrence]

Cool video. Thanks!

[mikeineugene]

Speaking of Golden Pheasant look what was sitting in a tree in my backyard yesterday.I was within about ten feet of this bird and the feathers on this thing are awesome.I am not sure what it was doing in my tree but it was interesting to look at.

[Riverborn75]

Non-native and feral, shoot it quick!

[Hardyreels]

Originally Posted by mikeineugene

Speaking of Golden Pheasant look what was sitting in a tree in my backyard yesterday.I was within about ten feet of this bird and the feathers on this thing are awesome.I am not sure what it was doing in my tree but it was interesting to look at.

I would definitely be buying a sack of cracked corn and scratch grain if that were hanging around my yard. I used to raise quail, partridge (chukar & Hun) and a few ring neck pheasant along with 225 laying hens on a small farm in PA. The birds often attracted Ruffed Grouse & Wild Turkey to my yard but never a Golden Pheasant.

[flytyer]

Andrew,

To answer your question about what feathers from the golden pheasant to use, Glasso, Wentworth, and Walt Johnson used the golden pheasant red/orange breast/body feathers for the wings. There is no trick as to which ones, just use feathers that aren't twisted.

Rob,

I know Mike Brooks from when he lived in the Seattle area. In fact, I tied next to him at several of the old Seattle Sportsman's Show that were held in the no longer standing Kingdome. He and I also taught several advanced tying classes at Swede's when it was located in Woodinville, WA. Mike is an excellent tyer and very good at teaching tying technique.

That said, his video shows some things that are not Glasso (or Wentworth) techniques, they are rather Mike's way of tying a spey fly. And like I said, it is not the way Glasso and Wentworth did it.

Glasso either painted the hook shank yellow, fl. orange, or white with model paint, or used a single layer of medium flat tinsel under the body of his flies that used floss for the rear 1/2 of the fly. He did this so that the florescent floss didn't darken and lose its "glow" when wet. Both the tinsel or light-colored painted hook shank accomplish this. When he used tinsel (which was most of the time), he tied the tinsel in at the rear of the body even with the hook's point. He then ran the tying thread up the shank in close, even, touching wraps after spinning the bobbin to flatten the thread. Then the flat medium silver tinsel was wrapped up the shank with each wrap of tinsel touching, but not overlapping the previous wrap. He did this up to the hook return wire.

(Mike doesn't do this in his video. Mike ties in the tinsel tag at the hook point and then wraps in back toward the hook bend 2-3 wraps and then back over itself until he reaches the hook point. He then ties off the tag tinsel. This produces a thicker tag that also is positioned differently than Glasso positioned his.

Glasso tied the Quileyute (the Quileyute is actually a Wentworth, not a Glasso fly, but they were very close friends) with golden pheasant natural red body feather for the tail (and sometimes didn't use a tail), not a dyed red golden pheasant crest feather like Mike did.

The body on the Wentworth/Glasso Quileyute is fl. orange Danville floss (not flame orange, rather the lighter hot orange), which has a very different look in the water than the antron yarn Mike uses. If a person wants something a bit easier to work with that still has the proper look, he should use Uni-Stretch in Hot Orange for the floss portion of the body.

Glasso and Wentworth made a dubbing loop out of the fl. orange floss by splitting it with a bodkin and inserting the sparse dubbing into the split floss. Mike doesn't do this.

The hackle on the Quileyute designed by Wentworth and tied by Wentworth and Glasso was teal flank with one side stripped. Mike used dyed black blue-eared pheaant in his.

Glasso and Wentworth tied the teal face/throat hackle in right in front of the body before the wing was tied in. Mike doesn't. Mike ties in the wing with 4 GP breast feathers (2/side) as Glasso and Wentworth did, but he ties them in before the teal throat/face hackle. Mike also ties in each feather for the wing separately, Glasso and Wentwoth tied them in 2 at a time (far side first, followed by the near side).

Mike then ties in the teal face hackle and finishes the fly with 1 GP breast feather on each side for the final wing. This is not how Glasso and Wentworth did it.

Glasso and Wentworth tied in the teal face/throat hackle before the wing was tied in and they also stripped one side of the teal feather before tying it in.

Glasso and Wentworth tied in the wing by tying in the far wing pair at the same time and holding them in place with 2-3 turns of thread. They then tied in the near wing pair with 2-3 turns of thread. Then the wing was held in the fingers of the left hand while the wing stems were cut off as close to the tie in as possible without cutting the thread. Then a drop of a medium thick head cement was put on the wing stems stubs and the whip finish was done right over the stem stubs to produce a very small head; but by using the head cement, a very durable fly was produced.

Mike's wing is tented properly, but it should have been done in the manner of Glasso/Wentworth by tying it in after the teal throat hackle and should have been tied in as I described above with the far side pair tied in together and the near side pair tied in together afterward.

Mike did use the proper 5 turns of evenly spaced tinsel and his finished fly looks good, but it looks a bit different from Glasso's style because of the things I've pointed out above.

[Norseman]

Wow Flytyer, great history lesson. Thank you very much, I really enjoyed reading that description of Glasso's techniques

[ALawrence]

Originally Posted by Norseman

Wow Flytyer, great history lesson. Thank you very much, I really enjoyed reading that description of Glasso's techniques

I second that. Great post!

[GR8LAKES FLYER]

Russ , you are a wealth of knowledge my friend !!






Mike

[Speyducer]

A great deal of "further education" in a few passages - many thanks, FT!

Mike

[YerPalJim]

Wow flytyer,

Very cool post. I don't tie a whole lot of traditional stuff but, you brought up some very cool ideas. I especially like the idea of an under wrap of tinsel to keep the colors from fading and splitting thread to make a dubbing loop. Thanks for the ideas.

--Koa

[fredaevans]

Ahhh, there it is ... Five Stars.

fae

[flytyer]

Guys,

I should have mentioned that the use of flat tinsel (usually silver) or hook shank painted yellow, fl. orange, or white didn't originate with Glasso or Wentworth. It is something that as far as I've been able to find out began with some of the Seattle/Everett steelhead fishermen and tyers after florescent floss became readily available in the '40's. Tyers like Lester Lambuth and Wes Drain along with Judge Olsen, Walt Johnson, and Ralph Wahl (I know Ralph was from Bellingham and not Seattle/Everett) were among the first to do this.

It is also possible that adding the tinsel or painting the hook shank was being done in southern Oregon and Northern California at the same time (the '40's). I know there are flies that were tied in both Southern Oregon and Northern California from the '50's that used this to keep the florescent floss from darkening. In other words, it is very difficult if not impossible to discover where and who did it first. However, there were a lot of flies being tied with florescent materials in the Seattle/Everett area that used the technique.

They did this in order to keep the floss from getting darker when wet, which also ruined its "glow". Adding the flat tinsel underbody or painting the hook shank yellow, fl. orange, or white with model pain was simply done as the solution to keeping the fl. floss from darkening and losing its "glow".

Glasso (and Wentworth) picked this up from the Seattle/Everett fishemen/tyers. I suspect it was Walt Johnson and Wes Drain who introduced these techniques of tinsel underbody or painted hook shank to Glasso when he got to know them on their trips to the OP rivers.. I know they introduced Glasso to the NF Stilly summer runs.

Mike Kinney may be able to shed some more light on this since Mike knew all of these folks. So perhaps I can get Mike to chime in a bit on this and get his input on who and when the tinsel underbody or painted hook began.

[mycastingsucks]

I've found I get really good results pinching the stem flat before you mount the GP wing so it doesn't rotate out of position. This has also worked very well for me with other featherwings like Glasso's other patterns. My .02