Major Hale, in How to Tie Salmon Flies, stated in the opening paragraph of the chapter on winging flies, "So far every process described is mere child's play compared to it, and continual practice only can make the beginner really efficient."

Before we get into the details of winging, we should set straight the scope of what is to be covered here. I am going to address the built and mixed wing methods of winging. Shoulders, sides, cheeks, toppings, horns and other accouterments of the head of the fly will be found in later instructions. Having set the basis for the topic at hand, let's dive right in. One cannot begin a discussion of winging without first making certain that the reader has a full grasp of the material requirements. Beautiful winging technique can make some materials do what they normally recoil from wishing to do. However, for the beginning and intermediate dresser, judicious use and selection of materials can only make the learning process easier and quicker.

Feathers. Feathers have a unique construction that the dresser makes use of to put together wings. A brief review here would probably be helpful. Grasp a duck breast feather at the butt end. Looking at the feather, one discovers two important points. The feather displays a very high degree of curvature, but at the same time, all barbs are married together. (Quick note on nomenclature: the center stem of the feather is referred to as the rachis; the fibers flaring from the rachis are called barbs; and the 'fluff that marries the barbs to one another are the barbules. I will try and diligently follow this language throughout this discussion) The only way that these barbs stay married to one another is if the barbs closer to the tip are somehow below the barbs that are near the butt. In fact, this is how the feather is structured. As you move away from the butt of the feather, each barb is set on the rachis slightly above the one t follows on the way to the tip. Pick up a turkey tail. Although this feather display very little curvature compared to the duck breast feather, the feather structure remains the same. Each barb rests slightly above its neighbor towards the tip, and slightly below its neighbor to the butt.

As a second consideration, select a size 12 dry fly trout hook. Set this on the bench. Now select two duck feathers. Take one that is 3 or 4 inches in overall length. Select another that is barely 1 inch in length. Pull back the fuzz at the base of the feather and look at the natural curvature of the barbs. Set them along side the hook and measure out a wing. Note that the very small feather has barbs that have a natural curvature that fits the size of the hook. You would tie in a wing close to the base of the barbs and the feather would provide a natural wing silhouette. Now place the large feather against the hook. Here, if one were to make a wing from this feather, you must tie it on way out towards the tips of the barbs. Also, the barbs at this point are very straight and do not provide a natural curve to the wing. For another example, select two Golden pheasant tippets. One from very high on the cape, another from the very base of the cape. Pull back the barbs on each feather until you have asize that should be used in winging this hook. Note that the very small feather retains the shape of a whole wing fly. The larger feather has very few barbs left to make a wing, and a wing attached with this feather would be very narrow and not at all pleasing.

The purpose behind this discussion is for the reader to recognize that proper feather selection plays an important role in how a wing looks. It also plays an important role in how easily a wing is attached to a hook. Selection of the proper materials to the hook size will help a wing maintain the proper shape and profile.

A final consideration before we begin to marry a wing. Select a barb or two from the turkey tail, down towards the butt end and cut off. If you have available a peacock wing feather, cut a barb or two off this feather. Hold the barbs near one another and look down on them as though viewing them from the tip of the feather from which they came. On the turkey barbs you will almost always see two curves in the feather. The barbs start to curve from the outside towards the inside, but then about halfway down they curve back out. In viewing the peacock barbs, the curvature is in one direction only, from out to in. The turkey feather has what is referred to as a 'reverse curve'. Reverse curves in feathers that are used in wings can make them difficult to marry. It can also make wing shape difficult to maintain. One solution to this problem is to alternate barbs that have strong reverse curves (such as turkey and swan) with feathers that have strong curves (peacock and bustard). In this manner the reverse urve can somewhat cut back to almost eliminated, thus making the wing take on the proper shape. It is also helpful to make certain that the lower barbs in the wing are made of feathers exhibiting a strong curvature.

Here are the general steps I follow to form a wing. Select the number of barbs from each material required and cut them off. Form piles of the materials, keeping right sided barbs with other rights, and lefts with their kin. You cannot many lefts to rights because the barbule structure is reversed between the two. To be successful in marrying feathers, you must many rights with other rights and vice versa. Then selecting the lowest barbs to set in the wing with their immediate neighbors, bring the two materials together and align the tips. Once aligned, bring the two materials together, keeping the upper material slightly below the lower material. If you recall from the discussion on feather structure, the upper barbs rest slightly below the lower barbs on the feather. We are duplicating this structure in the wing. Once aligned and put together, stroke the material from butt to tip to marry the two sections. Carefully examine the marriage. Their may be a few spots that did not completely marry. Tapon the edge of the upper section and force it to meet and marry with the lower section. Alternatively, gently roll the entire section back and forth between thumb and forefinger to force the marriage. When starting out, do not work with fewer than three barbs in a section. Marrying single or double barbs to other feathers is best left until you have developed skills and can easily and efficiently marry a wing.

We are now ready to mount the wing onto the hook shank. The wings are set over the hook shank and measured for the proper length. The lower barbs, as shown below, are set close to the sides of the hook, not on top. This is one of the great fables that has been perpetuated on fly dressers for years. It is almost impossible to set wings directly on top of the hook shank with each of the barbs directly on top of one another. Feathers are not naturally shaped in this manner, as we discussed earlier. Yet training manuals have for years shown two slips, side by side, completely vertical over the hook shank, prepared to be tied down. This leads to wing splitting, twisting and collapse. It is time to set the record straight. As another example, hold two wing feathers from a duck back to back. Note that if you keep the tips and top edges together there is a natural tendency for the feathers to separate towards the butts. If you were to place these two feathers over a hook so that a couple of sections were rmoved to wings, look at the shape and angle the sections take naturally relative to the hook. (This would be holding the rachis vertical with the barbs aligned as though they were to become wings on the fly). This is the same shape we want to produce with our wing. The upper barbs are closer together, not vertical with the lower barbs that would form the wing. In the diagram below, note where each barb rests relative to the hook shank. The objective is to bring each barb straight down onto the shank in the position shown. Thus, the lowest barbs rest somewhat on the side of the shank and the top barbs come straight down onto the middle of the shank. (Or in this case, directly between the shank and the return). Barbs in between assume their relative and proper position. Should the wing split near the thread, as long as the barbs are mounted in their proper position, the wing will remain married and will fish correctly.

Once the wings are in proper position, the thread is brought up and over the wings. It is brought round the underside of the shank and directly straight up. No tension has been applied to the thread in an attempt to mount the wing at this point. In the diagram below, the thread would be positioned over the point shown by number 1.

With the thread over position 1, SLOWLY but forcefully pull straight up to mount the wing to the hook. The most common error I see from dressers at this point is to snap the wing down. On a standard size 4 salmon iron, it should take from 4 to 5 seconds to completely tighten the thread and mount the wing. DO NOT GO TOO FAST! As the thread is pulled tight, it should be allowed to slide down the wing. Point 2 in the diagram represents the point on the upper barb that will be at the intersection of the hook shank and the thread. Note that point 1 is not that location. If point 1 were the location of the thread hook intersection (and I am referring here to a point after the thread has been tightened), the wing would stand straight up and not follow the body lines at all. Point 2 represents the location that after the thread is pulled taut, the upper edge of the wing will retain exactly the shape it was in when set above the hook shank prior to mounting. Finally, the butt ends of the wings were allowed to fall be the hook shank prior to mounting. After taking 5 turns of thread, HEADWARDS ONLY, grasp the butts and force them up on the top and sides of the hook shank. Refer back to the diagram that shows the wings forming a tent shape over the hook shank. This shape should still clearly be evident in the wings, particularly around the rear butt area of the fly. In the 'tent' diagram, most of the edges of the barbs are shown facing in a downward direction. When completely mounted these edges should be facing flat to slightly upwards (for those on the sides of the hook shank).

Here are some additional pointers:

Again, this procedure is not a quick one. Allow the wing to collapse onto the hook shank in a slow natural manner.

The grasp with the left hand must be firm, but not overwhelming. Otherwise the thread will not slide from point 1 to point 2.

Those golden pheasant tail fibers that have so few barbules that they do not wish to marry with other fibers are perfect for the top most section of the wing. With few barbules the tread slides easily from point 1 to point 2.

Barbs want to many to one another. If you are having difficulty getting two sections to marry, make certain you are marrying lefts with their fellow lefts not with an obstinate right. Also, check to see that your barbs are not twisted. If your wing material has net been properly stored, curves and twists may be present in the barbs. This makes marriage much more difficult.

Watch the angle of departure the wing takes from the hook shank. If you have a roof, topping and other items to go over the wing, the angle should be slightly lower than if the wing is to be left as is.

Finally, PRACTICE. No amount of reading or technique that I discuss here will ultimately prove to be a substitute for practice. Get a bare hook, some turkey tail feathers and mount some wings. If you start with a standard size 4 hook, start mounting wings that are 8 or 9 barbs high. Gradually work your way until you can mount a wing that is 18 or 19 barbs in width. Pay close attention to how each wing collapsed and what the problem was. Work on each step outlined here until the wing is correct.

The generally accepted difference in modem fly dressing between built and mixed wings has to do with the underwing. If the underwing is made up of barbs and mounted in a fashion similar to the main wing (say using white tipped turkey) then the wing is considered to be built. If the underwing is made up of whole feathers (tippets) or parts of other feathers (say tippets in strands) then the wing is considered to be a mixed wing. Mixed wings have other variations and definitions based upon the author writing the text. Kelson had his own definition and style. Clumps of feathers bound to the hook were considered mixed wings.

Modem dressers have basically simplified the built wing to the point where it does not differ much from the mixed wing. Originally the built wing would have had 5 or 6 different 'wings' attached to the hook. In a Jock Scott for example, the white tipped turkey would be wing one, bustard and golden pheasant wing two, the colored swan wing three, the woodduck and pintail wing four, and so on. This method leads to large heads because many winds of thread are made in attaching each of the different wings. It also becomes more difficult to get each section to follow the contour of the prior section and keep the wing neat and orderly. As a result, built wings are generally made of only two wings, the underwing and the main wing. The main wing being comprised of married barbs of all the materials called for in the dressing except the one material specified for the underwing (usually white tipped turkey tail).

Review some of the other pages in this site for additional tips. There is a discussion of winging on the Dee strip wing page and under the Champion. Some additional hints may be found there.

Winging is not a technique that lends itself well to written instruction. I have tried to cover some of the important points here that I usually see left out of other tying texts. I have assumed that the reader has access to other descriptions of winging flies and will be able to incorporate what I have discussed here with instructions found in the published instruction books. That being said, with enough practice, one should find that winging becomes fairly straight forward and not any more difficult that other techniques. It is difficult to overemphasize the amount of practice required. I would suggest that if one were seriously determined to dress salmon flies, that one purchase an entire set of duck wings, grab a size 12 salmon hook, and practice mounting wings until you have used up the entire set of duck wings. Careful practice and mounting of 80 to 100 wings will pay immense dividends when it comes time to mount married wings that are half an inch high. Plus, duck wings are inexpensive. Don't practice with what might be the best pair of turkey tails you will ever see. Use some materials that are readily obtainable and relatively inexpensive. Absolutely do not practice with any material that comes off of a rare bird.