When we left off, we had just completed tying in the tail. Next comes the green and red parrot tail veiling. A very suitable substitute for the parrot tail is dyed goose shoulder. Select several fibers of each color, no more than a half-dozen of each would be appropriate. Now a modem approach would be to marry the fibers and form left and right sections or miniwings and mount the "mini-wings" on each side of the golden pheasant. This is perhaps, somewhat extreme and not necessary. Particularly, if you are after a more traditional approach as I discussed in the last issue. Keeping more to the approach similar to what Blacker might have done, I tie in a few of the green fibers down along the golden pheasant crest approximately one-third as long as the crest feather. Two wraps of thread is sufficient. Next tie in the red fibers with two wraps of thread. Remember to minimize bulk, the thread should be flattened and wrapped side-by side. Not one wrap on top of the other.

Now do not cut the waste ends of the goose just yet. If you cut the waste ends of the goose you will have a very large bump that when covered by the ostrich herl will still be unsightly. This is because the thickness of the goose is much more than the floss body that follows the butt. The best approach is to cut half the goose very close as you would normally do. And the remainder of the goose where the first body joint would be. This allows the puce (purple) floss to cover some of the goose and be approximately level with the bottom of the ostrich herl. Instead of the bottom of the ostrich herl being slightly above the floss.

After the goose is trimmed, next prepare the ostrich herl butt. Select a herl with a barbule length that is about 1/16 inch (2-3 mm). Strip about one-half inch of the barbules off the barb and bend the barb about one-quarter inch from the start off the barbules. Tie in the herl at the point where the bend starts with two wraps of thread. Now here is a little trick that I picked up from Marvin when forming an ostrich herl head. Wax the thread thoroughly and take several turns of thread where the butt is to placed. The wax helps keep the herl in place, allowing each turn of herl to be placed very close to one another without sliding or shifting position. While this is not a traditional method it is a technique that may help your display flies. Wrap several turns of herl edge-to-edge to cover up the tail tie point. Next tie off the herl with a turn or two of thread and trim the excess herl.

Advance the thread to where the first joint will be. There is going to be four body segments, and you will want each to appear equal in size. Because of the throat and wing, you will want the last segment to be slightly longer than the others. If you measure everything perfectly, and make each segment the same size, the final segment next to the wing will appear shorter than the others. This will result in a fly that will look off balance. It is a similar concept with most jointed body flies. The rear section will always appear longer then the front section is they are both of equal length. So if you are dressing a Jock Scott, Baron or similar fly, divide the sections using a 40160 rule. Back-"half is 40 percent of the body length, and the front"half" 60 percent.

Now tie in the floss and wrap the floss to the butt and back to the tie down area-very similar to how you would create a tag. Next tie in the gold oval tinsel and take three turns and tie it off. After the tinsel is tied off, trim the waste ends and prepare the brown hackle feather. The feather barb length should be slightly less that half the gap length. First fold the hackle then tie in the hackle by the tip and take two or three turns and tie off.

A different method of folding the hackle that is perhaps, a little uncommon and "easier" than folding it in your hand is to use a pair of scissors. This technique is done with the fly in the vise-a tool that Kelson and Blacker did not approve of. First hold the feather by the tip and stroke the barbs towards the butt of the stem. Next tie in the feather by its tip with the shiny side up. Or in Kelson's mellifluous vernacular, "the good-side-to-town." Next take your scissors and place the blade next to the stem, angled down, and lightly run the blade from the tip to the but of the stem. You may need to repeat this step once or twice more to fold the barbs down. Next place the blade on the other side of the stem and repeat. You should now have a perfectly folded hackle. I know a few of our readers are now in a state of shock, for using such an unscrupulous method to fold a hackle. But, if Blacker or Kelson had used a vise, perhaps they would have used this technique also!

For each segment that follows you will repeat the above steps only the hackle barbs will be slightly longer as you proceed to the final segment. If done properly each hackle will be slightly longer than the preceding one, with the final segment hackle barb length being about the width of the hook gap. The four segments will consist of first puce (purple GG) floss with a brown hackle, followed by red floss with a green hackle, followed by green and yellow floss with a puce hackle (purple GG), and finally blue and orange floss.

Ensure you leave plenty of room for the wing and throat. Now the wing is a mixed wing. In the previous issue I discussed that the wing is not married. And that married wings do not appear in salmon fly literature until Kelson in the 1890s. Reading back through some of the salmon fly tying books the concept of married, built, and mixed wings is a very confusing subject. Alcott in his book Building Classic Salmon Flies, perhaps adds to the confusion. Alcott discusses mixed wings but, throws in terms like built and married in the discussion. He writes about several different authors in the late 1890s through the early part of the century, like Kelson, Hale and PryceTannatt. Each wrote about mixed, married, and built wings when discussing how to dress a fly. But, it would perhaps be best to list the authors chronologically starting from Blacker and their associated techniques. While I have not done this for this dissertation. I believe it might be interesting to follow the terminology and techniques in dressing a salmon fly from Blacker to Hale. Perhaps, then much of the confusion regarding mixed, married, and built wings would be cleared up for the novice salmon fly dresser.

Back to the fly and the mixed wing – the wing consists of golden pheasant tippets, bustard substitute, barred woodduck, teal, scarlet macaw (turkey tail dyed red-GG), yellow macaw (turkey tail dyed yellow-GG), brown mallard and a topping. Referring to the plate in Blacker's it appears that the golden pheasant is tied in first. I would prepare two tippets about a gap length in width and match them back-to-back. I like to position the first black bar directly above the butt. After the golden pheasant is tied in, I would tie in the throat, which is a red hackle. Measure the barb length, fold the hackle and tie in. Take three or four turns and tie off and trim. Pull the hackle bards down to form the throat and clear the top of the wing of hackle barbs. Otherwise tying in the remainder so the wing will be difficult. Blacker also used two red toucan feathers in the throat. I do not feel these are necessary on this pattern. The red cocks hackle will provide the necessary color and affect. But, if you wish, CDC dyed red make s a suitable substitute.

Next tie in left and right strips consisting of about four barbs each of the red and yellow dyed turkey, and bustard substitute, just in front of the throat hackle. Remember these are not married to one another. These strips should be slightly longer than the golden pheasant tippets, and should lay along the golden pheasant tippet. Place each strip very slightly in front of the preceding strip.

After the strips of turkey and bustard substitute are tied in, tie in a strip of barred woodduck on each side of the tippet. I prefer a broad strip of wood duck, perhaps about a dozen fibers. Have the barred wood duck extent to the first black band on the golden pheasant tippet. The broad strip of barred woodduck can look very striking on a fly. Just do not make it too over-powering. The brown mallard that follows can be tie in as a strip similar to the teal or wood duck, or you could tie it in a roof. Referring to the plate in Blacker's a roof does not appear appropriate. The mallard on the fly plate appears to be a strip tied in similar to the teal and wood duck. Now finally add the sides of kingfisher, not chatter!

Now for the final parts of the fly, the topping, horns, and head. The topping should be measured to the length of the wing and the tip of the topping should end at the tip of the tail. Before tying in the topping strip some of the stem of any barbs that would be in the way and flatten the stem with flat nose pliers. You may want to also, nick the underside of the topping with your finger nail to "open up" the topping slightly to allow the topping to cascade over the wing. A very nice look on a display fly. Finally, bend the stem slightly at the tie in point to facilitate tying it in. The horns on Blacker's flies appear to be tied in such that they follow the top of the wing. Most of the flies you see tied today have the horns on the side of the wing and they cross at a point just above the end of the hook. Since for the most part, we have tried to keep the pattern relatively similar to how it was tied over 100 years ago-tie the horns in so they follow the top of the wing. You may want to refer to many of the Schmookler patterns found in each of his two books on materials to see just how the horns are positioned.

The herl head can be insidiously difficult. This final step should not be rushed. First trim the topping and horns so that there is a taper to the eye of the hook. If you trim these off with a blunt or abrupt edge, the herl will not stay put. After trimming the waste ends, prepare the ostrich herl by folding the hed, similar to folding a hackle. It is not very difficult and is actually easier than folding a hackle. Use your fingers and not scissors for this one!

Next thoroughly wax the thread, create a very smooth base of thread, and advance the thread to the edge of the horns. Next tie in the herl by the tip, and trim the waste end of herl. Now wrap the herl in tight close turns, similar to creating a butt. The folded herl should sweep back into the wing rather than standing upright like the butt. After taking four or five turns of herl, tie it off, trim the waste end and take a few more turns of thread.

You can cover the head completely with thread and create a nice taper to the eye and whip finish-covering everything with thread. Or, you could create a nice taper to the eye of the hook and whip finish. The first technique is appropriate if you are going to use a clear head finish. With a clear finish, you do not want any materials showing through the thread. With the later technique, you can take a black lacquer and finish the head. The black lacquer looks very nice, particularly if you use two coats.

Sometimes with a clear finish, the head of the fly turns white a few months later. The black lacquer will not. Not all clear finishes fog up or turn white. Hunter's carries a very good clear finish, called "Cellire." It is reasonably priced at two dollars for a 1.5 fl oz bottle. The only aspect of the Cellire I do not like is that it takes about four or five coats to create a smooth high gloss finish as compared to two for the lacquer. It's up you to choose.