Where are the best Turkey feathers?

[Landon P 0]

Due to Wisconsin having turkey season recently I have been given an almost whole turkey. It is only missing the fan and I'm looking to take majority of the feathers for fly tying. My question is were are the best feathers located? Also on another not if anyone has any cool flies to tie with squirrel I was given on of thoose to.

[petelangevin 0]

Wings have great feathers but the rump has great marabou.   

[Mark Knapp 0]

The tail. 😄

Actually, it depends on what flies you intend to tie. Many fly patterns call for tail feathers but. Others call for quill feathers and biots (wing) some call for flats, those are body feathers and as mentioned, marabou.

[FIN-ITE 34 0]

Do yourself a favor and keep the wings left/right separated when bagging. The body feathers I would leave on the skin and treat with borax, you can find the procedure by a search on this forum.

Now you being from WI, I would think that you have good access to some deer hair. With the turkey wing feathers, squirrel tail and deer hair you can make one good bunch of Muddler Minnows.

[DarrellP 0]

Front edge of wing feathers are biots.  Used for tails or wings, as in a stone fly nymph, Copper John, or Prince.  Wrapped up the body for quill dries or nymphs if long enough.  The other side makes wing slips on some wet fly patterns and Muddler as stated before.  

Squirrel makes great tails and streamer wings, but it is slick and doesn't compress much.  Takes some getting used to. Look through the site.  Great ideas.  Norm also has a great website. Flytyingnewandold.com. for patterns.

 

Have fun!

 

[Kimo 0]

I've been using the rump to tie articulated streamers which have been very effective for catching smallies.

 



Kimo

[flytire 0]

every feather on that bird can be used in one way or another for tying flies

properly save/cure the entire skin and youll have tying feathers yor years

[Landon P 0]

Thank you everyone for the response. I am going to deal with that later today hopefully. As for the squirrel I cut the tail off and stretched the hide and put salt all over it. I'm hopefully gonna use it for a hares mask type deal and just have it handy at me desk.

[mikechell 0]

I hope you kept the tail, since those are the longest hairs.  Squirrel is notoriously "slicker" than other furs, and getting it to stay in place while tying can take some extra care.

[niveker 0]

Pretty much what everyone above says, they're all good feathers, keep as much as you can, just be sure to clean them thoroughly. 

Fly recipes often call for feathers from specific birds, but I will substitute something else as long as the properties of the feathers match.  I tie pheasant tail nymphs using the fibers from turkey tail instead of pheasant.  They have great mottling to them.  The fluffy fibers at the base of many turkey feathers make a great leech pattern as is, no dying needed.  I use a permanent marker on the wing quill fibers to make quill bodies in different colors, and soften them at the same time.   The iridescent flats make great tails and wingcases, and soft hackles.    

The same goes for squirrel, just use it as a substitute for similar materials.   Tails make great smaller Clouser type flies, it takes a little getting used to as it is very slick, as DarrellP says.  The body hair make great dubbing.  

[Sandan 0]

6 hours ago, Kimo said:

I've been using the rump to tie articulated streamers which have been very effective for catching smallies.

 



Kimo

quincy?

[Kimo 0]

57 minutes ago, Sandan said:

quincy?

Yes.

[Landon P 0]

Ok now my next question. What is the best way to cut it up

 

[flytire 0]

 

😀🤪

[Mark Knapp 0]

I leave mine in one whole piece but you can take off the wings. Borax them up real good and make sure you get them really dry before you put them away. Salt or borax the rest of the hide. I leave the the wings and the body whole in case I need to match up feathers later.