Peacocks, Angels & Hand-Tied Jigs

When my 19 year-old daughter Sarah sees peacock feathers, she sees pretty skirts for cornhusk angels. To my 7-year-old daughter Autumn the same feathers represent pieces needed for cute little dolls. To me, peacock feathers a represent jig or fly material. The iridescent green and purple strands make wonderful tail material, and also work really nicely for wrapped bodies. I use them in both smallmouth jigs and trout jigs.

Normally the peacock complements other materials, adding a little flash to a black or gray hair jig or a deeper green to an olive marabou jig. The jig above is actually all peacock.

It also works nicely for me because I get all the materials I need from Sarah's remnants. She needs the full end of the feather with the prettiest colors, and she always end up with pieces that have several strands still on them She would throw those away, so I gladly move them to my tying area. Autumn's use falls in between. She likes the full pretty feathers, but she just likes making things, so she makes her dolls, enjoys them for a while and then takes them apart and give the feathers back to Sarah!

All this peacock talk makes me want to go trout fishing.

Crawdad Colors

Yeah. It happened again. This time in the craft section at Walmart. If you like hair jigs or streamers you probably won't blame me for getting distracted. Six feet of fine crawdad colors and nice soft fur for about $5!

I didn't buy it (yet) but I do know where to find it, and I just might be back. They didn't have the same thing in white, but If they ever were to, I'll bet I could tie a lot of shad patterns from the same material.

Yesterday my daughter brought me a remnant of crocheted purple, sparkly fuzzy yarn and asked if I could use it. I suspect my eyes might have sparkled a bit when I saw it. Needless to say, I took it, and in fact I've already used it on one jig's body.

Maybe the tying excitement will come and go quickly. If not, next year's Christmas list may be nothing but fur, feathers, thread, tinsel and other stuff like that!

Craft Store Gems

Officially, my wife and I were shopping for my daughter, picking up art supplies from Michael's and Hobby Lobby. The fur and feathers that caught my eye wouldn't go into Sarah's art. To me, they looked like bodies and tails for flies and jigs.

Actually, the packages looked a lot like the ones that hang from hooks in fly shops, with the main differences being that the packages were bigger and the price tags were smaller. I understand that not all marabou or craft hair is created equal. Given my unrefined tying skills, though, the craft store stuff should work just fine, and I'm eager to start tying.

Considering the fact that it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow and spit a mix of rain and snow the next day, I might be trying out the new fur and feathers really soon. And then soon after, I hope to introduce some trout to a few buggy new creations.