Bloody butchers....

[bibio1]

I too do as Paul (bibio1) does but just use scissors. With practice you will only need to split off one or two (or even none) fibres with the dubbing needle.

Sandy your method looks shite :shock: I have never cut the back edge of any wing to get a slope, just rely on the natural shape of the feather. But you are quite right it makes not a jot of difference to the fish and as you say is probably better with the ragged profile.

I don't particularlly like Alan's fly above either - wing too thick and stuck up too high. But again I'm sure it catches fish. Fly style is a very personal thing isn't it? Some of the horrors I've seen used when ghilling make you weep but they all catch fish!


Andy

I like the fly to be sleek and streamlined.

[Fishtales]

Looks like you tyed the wing in upside down and that is why you are getting the split and separation, folding helps eliminate that  :crap

[Fishtales]

Doing it the way you have means you are compressing the feather against the grain which can cause it to turn over rather than crush down. It also does that if you cut the slips too close to the centre stem as the herls are thicker there and don't compress as well. You will see it better on larger feathers where the feathers next to it overlap. The part outside the overlap, you will see the line up the feather, is finer that the part below the overlap. You would cut the slips from the feather on the outside of that line.

[Fishtales]

I don't have any feathers here at the moment Andy but if you look at an individual herl, one side, I think, is concave, very slightly, and the other is convex, the upper side. When the herls come together these fit over each other and the hooks marry them together.

I think this shows it.

http://ncsce.org/pages/feathers.html

Tying it in with the feather the 'right' way up has the convex side facing up so it compresses better than with the feather the 'wrong' way up which is compressing against the convex side.

Probably shouldn't make that much difference and I'm probably talking out my arse, but it sounds good

[Fishtales]

I found this electron microscope of the barbules.



You can see the convex in the part next to the stem.

This one shows a cross section of the barbule with the hooks on one side and the loops on the other.

http://ncsce.org/pages/feathers.html

[bibio1]

I think all you need to know is if you can wing a butcher you can wing anything.