I just tied up a few more Howell style intruders and thought I would throw them out for some input. These were tied on 35mm waddingtons. One with a rabbit strip tail vs. the seemingly more typical ostrich. Look forward to your comment.
Really cool flies, Scott! This is one of my favorite patterns. You'll have to let us know how the rabbit strip tail fished - I might have to try it myself.
I dig your color combinations, especially the orange/white. What is the orange material behind the collar/under the wing on that one?
With the orange and white combos I've just been experimenting with a so-called "river squid" or shrimpy look. That one in particular has orange arctic fox as a collar behind the wing to give a little structure to the shape. It seems to be working well on the tubes as well. The body is a gold diamond braid material with mono "eyes" and ice dub pink at the tail. I have also tied these combos on tubes as well and am experimenting with the rabbit strip tail on those as well. Seems to add another level of movement.
I used rabbit strip on the rear of some of my intruderish flies with very good results, i like it specially on the smaller ones i tie for streams. Sometimes i like to put in a bunch of saddles instead, or sometimes just the (as you said) more "typical" ostrich/rhea. All work great, every one with its own remarks, but all good.
This might be a stupid question, but what kind of ostrich feathers are those? Usually all I see are the big plumes, which seem to be a bit too big to tie in very many. I really like the smaller ostrich feathers like that.
you'll get a couple hundred feathers. at least half of them small and stiff enough to wrap as a hackle. Most dusters will be grey, but you can find black ones too. Rite-aid, hardware stores, etc... $7 to $9.
Thanks all!! It's been a fun pattern to tie. Typically trying morecolors and combinations than I'll actually use as I'm sure most of you do as well.
Dinker, not a dumb question at all. I was finding the same problem and was debating whether or not to invest in some Rhea. I found that by pickingthrough the ostrich at a local shop was able to find some fairly fine fibers as opposed to the typical big webby plumes. Also less expensive than Rhea.
That being said, the upper fly (brown/natural) is wrapped with the tip section of a normal plume.
I'm going to continue to evolve these into what I hope will become a steady go-to pattern.
Thanks again,
Scott
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