Tying With Emu Feathers | MidCurrent

I’ve a love/hate relationship with fly tying. I benefit from the satisfaction of catching fish on flies I made myself, however I’m a decidedly common tier. It will possibly take me an hour or extra to tie up sufficient flies to final me a day (though that in all probability says extra about my propensity to lose flies than it does my tying capacity).

Both method, I’m at all times intrigued with new tying strategies or supplies, which is why this story in Fly Fisherman Journal caught my eye. Bob Quigley wrote about emu feathers, and the way most fly tiers overlook this useful resource.

Quigley was first launched to emu feathers by way of a Herters catalog when he was 12, but it surely wasn’t till he was in faculty that he noticed their actual potential. Whereas working at a zoo to pay his method by way of college, a part of Quigley’s job was to scrub cages at an aviary that housed three emus.

“As I gathered the emu feathers, I seen the feather barbs had an identical construction to tails and appendages on the completely different mayfly nymphs I had been col­lecting and tying,” Quigley writes.”The inventive mild went on, and I began tying many nymphs with these feathers. The flies labored nice, and the feathers held up underneath rigorous fishing situations. I then began to horde, kind, and acquire luggage of those unimaginable feathers.”

Emu feathers aren’t simply nice for tying nymphs, both. Quigley says the versatile shafts of the hackle feathers make wrapping dry flies straightforward, and so they’re preferrred to be used in hackle stacker-style flies.

You’ll be able to learn the remainder of Quigley’s story right here, however after perusing it myself, I’m off searching for emu feathers.