Ostrich Challenge and Hope You'll Help

[MD_Gene]

What do you do with ostrich herl? I have black, tan, pink, white, and olive. I don't have a lot of ideas. The pink i was thinking of making an attractor pattern.i made a couple of fuzzy caterpillars in tan with a TMC r200 hook.

All ideas are appreciated. This group is one of the most helpful on the web.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SBecker]

Ray Charles

 

[JMP]

I have used the olive to make a fresh water shrimp pattern. The herl, few strands of wood duck fibers front and rear and shell back are a simple tie. I use gray or natural for a sow bug.

 

[Stenonema]

There was a fellow (never met him) Nick Niclaus, I beleive was his name. He moved to the West from the Big Pine Valley. He created a series of emerger patterns using ostrich for the thorax. McConnels country store would be a good resource for recipes. I have used them for the last 20 years (guessing) and they are dynamite. I admire the creativity that it takes to create such ingenious patterns. I can't tie them nearly as beautiful and good thing the trout don't care. I have watched insects hatch as the vacate the nymphal shuck. The thorax area of the shuck as the insect pops out the top glows just for a second as it becomes hollow. I believe that the herl may imitate this well.
Thorax areas of flies and nymph gills. Young man, don't feel like walking to my shelf, wrote a book called Mayflies top to bottom There is an ostrich herl nymph there that I have had success with. If I remember right though it is time consuming.

 

[Fredrick]

Tie up some Yank's Assassins

 

[sniperfreak223]

you could also put it into a dubbing loop and us it as a really long hackle...

 

[marcq]

midges. use an eraser and get all the fuzz of it and it makes great midge body when wrapped a hook. you can use it for a more natural segmentation in a larger fly as well. kinda like gold wire for a PT.

you can use it for streamer patterns. its very fluid when wet. get creative you could probably do a ton of things with it.

 

[nfrechet]

scuds

http://www.charliesflyboxinc.com/flybox/details.cfm?parentID=136

 

[dc410]

Look up Murray's lead eye Hellgrammite by Harry Murray. The tail calls for strands of black ostrich herl. It has real nice movement and is a lot more durable than I expected. I caught a lot of smallies on that pattern last summer.

 

[boychick]

Streamers! Intruder style flies or use the ostrich in a wooly bugger as the tail a la Harry Murray style.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Cress and sow bugs!

 

[StarvinMarvin]

Use it as a thorax on a PT. You won't be disappointed.

 

[just_jon]

I tie midge mergers using herl for the body in the same way you tie peacock on a griffiths gnat. The extended fibers allow the fly to ride just right in the surface film. I tie them in white, cream, grey, and olive in sizes 18-24.

 

[Maurice]

Gene,

All great responses/ideas for use of Ostrich Herl. You are right about these guys, I would have never thought there could be so many uses.

One such use is the head area of the Casual Dress Nymph pattern. Kind of a walts worm with a tail and black head. Cigar shaped and deadly on spring creeks.

But since no one mentioned it I will, Ostrich herl is the single LEAST durable material in fly tying/fly fishing. This stuff breaks on a sneeze. So as with peacock herl, ostrich herl when used as a material in fly tying should be reinforced with counter wraps of thread, wire or when used as a tail or streamer wing have enough fibers added to allow for some "wear" without loss of appearance when used.

I stay away from it.

Oh, and most of those beautiful salmon flies that Eunan ties use ostrich herl to book end the body on the shank. I don't know the name of that part of the fly, sorry.

 

[ryguyfi]

I personally think that ostrich hurl is the best representative for gills on a nymph. It flows and breathes just like the natural gills. I've used it for patterns on my drake nymphs, but I think it should be used in more patterns. But like Jack said, it's brittle so counter wrapping with wire is important.

 

[lv2nymph]

I use it for the gills, legs, & tails on an articulated burrowing nymph.