Partridge

[Traditionalist]

Partridge. English partridge, also referred to ( correctly) as Hungarian partridge looks like this;



The skin shown is a hen. Sometimes there is not much difference between cocks and hens. This depends on habitat , feed,etc. Although cocks are often greyer and more finely marked. Hens can be much browner, and more heavily marked. These are most useful for a variety of patterns. One may also dye the grey feathers very successfully, either using dye, or marker pens. Using the pens means that one may dress a lot of different flies from one skin. Of course one may also tint the brown feathers as well if desired. The breast feathers are always a lighter colour, ( often light grey) than the back.

This is a tail feather, and a brown speckled hackle ( Not BARRED!)from the back of the bird. The barred hackles may be used, but they look slightly "odd" on some flies.



The brown back feathers are used for things like the Partridge and Orange, or March Brown, and the lighter grey breast feathers for the Yellow Partridge, but many many others as well. The wing coverts may be used, but all the covert hackles have a light yellowish stripe down the middle, which makes them look rather odd, so they are not used in any "standard" patterns. They work perfectly well for spiders though, and one can "dye" the stripe, using a black or dark brown marker pen.

Chinese or Asian partridge is a much smaller version of the Hungarian partridge, usually of very poor feather quality, and only has very few useful small feathers for dressing spider flies and similar, on the skin. They are often offered cheaply, but are not worth the money anyway.

As noted, Hungarian partridge may be dyed very well, and I have a range of dyed skins, some olives, green, orange , and a claret. My absolute favourite is this "Golden Olive" skin, which makes some excellent spiders, among other things. This skin was dyed after a lot of experimentation, using an extract of onion skins, and olive hot dye.Wet mayflies dressed with these hackles also seem particularly killing, and one may also use the breast hackles as fan wings on many mayfly ( British Usage. i.e. E.Danica) patterns.