Every Salmon fly tier likes to find and use Golden Pheasant toppings that are not only large, straight and full but also are deeply colored.

Last summer, someone gave me a couple of badly sun-bleached Golden Pheasant necks, Both crests were almost white, yet the feathers themselves were actually in good, usable condition. What to do? Well, recently I hit upon an idea to "breath new life" into them and decided to dye them and see if I could make something out of almost nothing.

The result was very nice. In the past I would always try to avoid any poorly colored crests. Now, with this technique, I can salvage them and use them to good effect.

Basically, I used a simple yellow-colored dye - I cannot tell you the exact mixture of dye colors but use the yellow with a little bit of orange mixed in to do the trick. Of course, as with anything like this, a certain amount of experimentation would be in order but I think you will be pleased with the results!