Hair, Quill & Stem.

[Mataura mayfly]

Just playing around with some different body materials. All on #12 hooks, either Finney barbless Irish Lough hooks or Kamasan B175, Finney are black and the Kamasan barbed abd bronze, so it should be easily picked which is which. All hackled (bar one) with the upper covert gun steel blue/grey feather from the wing of our Shoveller Duck (Hen). Some have a light thorax of possum belly fur if I felt the body was a bit short with just the hair, quill or stem in question.

Hackle



Black silk with Hare whisker rib



Grey silk with possum whisker rib



Latvian Boar (thanks William )



Porcupine (again, thanks William)



Six strands of Katies (Kim's youngest daughter) hair, retrieved from her hair brush and twisted before wrapping.



Guard hairs from my GWP dog Gus.



Hares whisker



Possum whisker



Stripped dyed red feather stem, looks more orange- hence the Partridge hackle

[hankaye]

Mataura mayfly, Howdy;

, , !!!

hank

[letumgo]

LIKE!!!

A dazzling display of skill. Bravo.

[Mataura mayfly]

Thanks guys, they are a bit untidy....... bloody macro photography! And the light on the ones taken inside under artificial light are a bit yellow toned, but they might do OK as fishing flies.
I was hoping William might stumble across this and get back into the swing of similar bodies he was having a run on.

[Donald Nicolson]

A great collection Jeff, I like the different body materials you used.

[Smuggler]

Jeff, those are some beautifully tied flies, my friend. Great choice with the Shoveller Duck, what a plethora of materials.

[gingerdun]

Jeff, You've been busy. Again.
Really interesting, into an area I've never explored.

As for the macro photography lighting, many digital cameras have a setting for Automatic White Balance (AWB) that fixes the problem.

Lance

[Mataura mayfly]

Jeff, those are some beautifully tied flies, my friend. Great choice with the Shoveller Duck, what a plethora of materials.

The Shoveller or Spoonbill duck (spoonie to many here) is an elusive creature, flies into a pond like a jet fighter, usually doing one pass and gone before you realise it has even been, never flying straight and level, but jinking and diving at a speed that would leave a Mallard for dead. Consequently I only have one set of wings at present. The male bird is a lot more striking in colouration, I am always on the look out for those.
They are a self introduced bird here, from Australia and there is not a huge stock of them, but not being native they make the game bird list and can be hunted.

Lance, they do, but I am a bit of a Neanderthal when it comes to electronics, I will have to investigate and try it out. I prefer natural light when I can get it, but if you look hard in the natural shots you can see the puddles in the driveway. Was another wet miserable day yesterday with little natural light to play with...... river raising and dirtying day as well!

[William Anderson]

Jeff, I'm sorry I am just getting to commenting on all the amazing patterns that have been posted lately. We have, by far, the most active and innovative group of tiers on the net. For such a narrowly focussed subject, you would think it would be more difficult to maintain this kind of momentum for a forum, but it's posts like this and all the others that just go to show, when you find something that works this well, it's not hard to explore these flies with some enthusiasm.

I love this entire thread. I have collected a pile of whiskers from hare's masks, always intending to put together the kind of quill bodies you've posted here, and I'm glad you were able to use the latvian boar and porcupine so cleanly. I have always enjoyed quill bodies and these are a beautiful range of patterns. Love it. My god, you've really been busy.

w