A little side project

[pnptrapp 0]

One of our neighbors had two turkeys that were butchered earlier this summer. I was gifted feathers from them for tying flies (great source and free!), but some of those feather's were just too pretty to not use for something else. This is what I tied with them.

 

Out of curiosity what flies could those feather's be used for?

[Fisherboy0301 0]

The body feathers of a turkey, called "flats" because the top edge is flat, make great parachute posts on dry flies. I got some recently that were black, with a white tip, made great easily seen parachute dries.

[FlaFly 0]

Real nice ear"rings". did you paint them with Sally or something to keep them from getting frazzled?

[pnptrapp 0]

I did actually use Sally on the thread just like flies. I never thought of using the white tips as parachutes.

[utyer 0]

Slips from each side of these feathers make nice wings on wet flies. You can also use slips from these flats for wing cases on nymphs. They are quite slippery, so I usually cut the slips twice as wide as I want, and fold them over. They make for a very dark iridescent wing case for either mayfly or stonefly nymphs.

[RickZieger 0]

I have also used the barbs on these to wrap for midge bodies for pan fish.

I dyed some other colors also.

Worked well.

 

Rick

[Eric Hanson 0]

The body feathers of a turkey, called "flats" because the top edge is flat, make great parachute posts on dry flies. I got some recently that were black, with a white tip, made great easily seen parachute dries.

 

Somewhat of a misnomer. Not all body feathers are "flats." Turkey flats are feathers from the saddle of the turkey and are about 6" long. Feathers from the breast, are T-base feathers and are about 3" long. While you may use small flats for winging material, more than likely you will want to use the smaller, t-base feathers for this purpose.

 

Another idea is to strip the quill on flats for quill bodies.