Flashy Starling

Flashy Starling

• Hook: Standard Wet Fly hook, like Dai-Riki #070, size 16-22
• Body: Several strands of peacock Krystal Flash
• Rib: Small gold wire
• Hackle: Starling body feathers

A small thorax would work on this pattern also. The rib is almost mandatory to improve the durability, otherwise 1 or 2 fish will tear this apart. You can improve durability a bit more by applying a thin layer of cement to the hook shank prior to wrapping the Krystal Flash.

Jungle cock nails are a classic material used to tie classic flies, but can be very intimidating to work with.  Here are a few different ways to incorporate jungle cock into your flies.

There’s nothing like the real thing
Unless you are getting some TARP funds, that $250 jungle cock cape may be just beyond your financial reach.  However, most of us are tying to fish, not for the shadow box. Consider getting a value grade cape from online sources. Here is one that I picked up for about $30 from eBay:

Some of the nails are split. This is real apparent for the larger nails near the top of the above picture.  These are easily repaired by putting a drop of head cement on the black band between the white and orange dots, then drawing your thumb over the surface of the nail. This should pull the fibers together, and the cement hold them in place.

The edges of the nails are are not as round and a bit rougher than you would see in the expensive versions, but these work fine for fishing flies.  Search for these on eBay.

You can also purchase a package of 6 to 10 individual nails at many fly shops or online retailers. This method has 2 advantages, its a relatively small outlay, about $1 per nail. Also, you purchase a package of the specific size that you need.  The link provided above goes to Leland Fly Shop, which has a very good price for these Jungle Cock packages.

Birds of a different feather
Another option is to modify a different feather to give an “eye” look. Starling feathers are one such option. The feathers from the back of the starling are black, have that iridescent shine, plus an orange tip.  Add a drop each of white and orange acrylic paint, and you have a reasonable facsimile. (at least close enough to fool a Steelhead that has been away at sea for a few years).

Here is a starling feather, plucked, and painted.  I used a drop of white acrylic fabric paint and a drop of orange on the tip. This one could have used a bit more orange, but you get the idea.

Guinea Fowl feathers already have the white dots and black backgrounds. Find one with a white spot centered on the stem, trim the feather around the spot to leave just the single spot, then color the spot orange with a sharpie. A drop of fleximent or varnish on the feather will polish it off.

The options continue in this article that shows how to create a jungle cock substitute  from partridge feathers.

Wicked, tricksy, false! Gollum, gollum

Please do ignore this section. Use real feathers.  Still here? OK, here is how you can imitate jungle cock without using any feathers. Use a photo realistic copy of a feather. Copy this picture to your PC, print it on Tyvek or similar waterproof paper, and trim the “paper nails” to shape, and tie in. Click on the photo for a full resolution copy.

I created this photo by scanning an actual jungle cock nail, and used PhotoShop to copy/paste.  If you need to resize the photo, you can use an imaged editing software, or just scale it while printing.

The starling feathers are usually small, and work well on flies size 14 and smaller. Other feathers may be substituted like partridge, hen, and quail.

Peacock herl is fragile, this demo shows adding a wire rib to reinforce the herl, so you can catch a few fish on the same fly.

You may see packages of loose soft hackles in the fly shop. Avoid these.  These packages are the left overs after the best feathers have been used. The package may seem to be a bargin, but in the long run Its better to purchase the full skin, you get the best feathers and the skin itself stores the feathers sorted by size and color.

These packages are useful for providing legs on nymphs, and the very casual soft hackle tier.

Buy the skin.

Partridge is my favorite, each skin has tons of feathers, which are also useful for caddis dry fly wings (spent partridge pattern, for example).

Starling is another popular bird for creating soft hackles. The starling feathers are small, dark, and iridescent.  Very useful for tying down to size 20.

From the bottom, Hen backs are available and these are relatively inexpensive. They are available in a few colors and useful to tie larger sizes of soft hackle patterns (size 14 and larger, from my experience)

The top-most wing is a coot substitute. Several of the classic patterns call for coot feathers.

The wing in the middle is snipe substitute. The purple and snipe is a classic pattern.

Its not legal to sell coot and snipe skins, so the fly shops sell substitutes, bird parts that are similar, but legal.

Quail (on the left), and Ruffled Grouse are two other birds that are used. Pheasant call also be used.

These can be used instead of partridge, if you don’t have a partridge skin.

Sources

I like to always check my local fly shop first before ordering online. Its usually the same price. You can touch and feel the material. Compare several skins and choose the one that looks best to you, look at coloration and for tears and flaws in the skin (many of these are hunted, so shotguns and dogs are part of the processing).

Your local fly shop is an outstanding resource for tying materials, information, and supporters for fly fishing in your area. Give them business if you can.

My local fly shop, though, doesn’t stock many soft hackle materials, so I also shop online.  Most of the online fly tying merchants carry the most popular materials (hen backs, partridge, and maybe starling skins). Here are a few web sites that specialize in soft hackles these materials:

• Blue Ribbon Flies
• Great Feathers
• Jim’s Fly Company

If you have a favorite supplier, please leave a comment. I’ll update this list (and give them a little business).