"Tom Littleton" wrote in
news:mVYlk.308$7N1.28@trnddc06:

Over the past few years, I have tied more and more dryfly imitations
of mayfly duns with variations of quill bodies. I use the word mayfly
for generics, not just the large fly by that name as Europeans use it.
My reasons for the move to quills was twofold: A slender,
realistically segmented body could be created and lighter colors
remained true when wet. The variations I have tried include, peacock
quill(bleached and dyed),stripped and dyed hackle quill,
bleached and dyed peccarry, turkey biots and plastic
'pseudoquill' types. Right now, I have sort of settled for using
turkey biot for most patterns, due to good availability, durability
and ease of use. Any others with input on this?
Tom


AK Best was big on this in AK's Fly Box. It was a lovely book, but I gave
it away at a Clave Raffle, as the tying style didn't really appeal to me at
the time (also, there's only so many ways to write "use a quill body" to
fill up a book, so I found it a tad tedious). Perhaps I should revisit it.
I still tie a quill body midge with a Z-wing wing tied flat back on a size
24 hook that works quite well.

One problem is that the quills tend to break, with bits splintering off as
you wind them, if they're dry. Soaking them for a while in water with a
few drops of hair conditioner takes care of this.

--
Scott
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