pheasant tail nymph

[NewSal]

First of all I'm very much a novice fly tyer.

Have a question about tying the pheasant tail nymph, it seems that when I tie them I end up with the thorax being much to large to seem proportionate, all the videos I've watched tell you to wrap the pheasant tail fibers the whole way up until about an eye length behind the eye. Whenenever I do this I always end up with a large ball from the peacock hurl being wrapped around the pheasant tail body + copper wire + the pheasant tail wingcase/legs.
So what I've been doing is stopping the body wraps short and wrapping the peacock fibers on bare hook, seems to work out a little better.
Anyone else do this, or have any tips for not having the ball look?
I've heard wrapping the peacock around the thread like you would dubbing may help a little but I'm not sure

 

[McSneek]

I wouldn't wrap the PT fibers to within an eye length. Would stop and tie off when you are satisfied with the length of the abdomen. At times I continue wrapping the copper rib around the hook shank to add some bulk to the thorax area or just use a sufficient number of peacock fibers to get a satisfactory thorax.

Keep in mind that there are versions of PT nymphs that don't include a peacock thorax. They are basically fibers wrapped to the eye, maybe tied back then and clipped to form legs. I don't like that look personally but when you see how think real nymphs are I can understand not even tying in a thorax.

I tie a lot of PTs with ice dub for the thorax instead of peacock herl. You can get peacock ice dub which looks nice. Try something like that.

 

[afishinado]

Salvelinusfontinali wrote:
First of all I'm very much a novice fly tyer.

Have a question about tying the pheasant tail nymph, it seems that when I tie them I end up with the thorax being much to large to seem proportionate, all the videos I've watched tell you to wrap the pheasant tail fibers the whole way up until about an eye length behind the eye. Whenenever I do this I always end up with a large ball from the peacock hurl being wrapped around the pheasant tail body + copper wire + the pheasant tail wingcase/legs.
So what I've been doing is stopping the body wraps short and wrapping the peacock fibers on bare hook, seems to work out a little better.
Anyone else do this, or have any tips for not having the ball look?
I've heard wrapping the peacock around the thread like you would dubbing may help a little but I'm not sure

Sounds like you are doing it right. The herl thorax is darker as well as bigger than the abdomen something like the photo below.

Here is a video for tying a PT:

http://www.orvis.com/news/fly-fishing/video-how-to-tie-the-pheasant-tail-nymph/

 

[MKern]

I only use 1 or 2 peacock fibers for the thorax. More than that and it might be hard to have a smooth thorax.

 

[NJTroutbum]

If i use another material for the thorax, i only wrap the fibers forward through the thorax. If not then i tie it 100% pheasant tail and skip the herl.

 

[GenCon]

NJTroutbum wrote:
If i use another material for the thorax, i only wrap the fibers forward through the thorax. If not then i tie it 100% pheasant tail and skip the herl.

^^^ Boom! Yes. Thats all that is needed.

GenCon

 

[1hook]

One watch out is the size wire you are using. Wire comes in all sorts of sizes and can add lots of bulk depending what size you are using. I use a lot of small or x-small wire when tying.

 

[nfrechet]

follow this tutorial and youll never have problems again

http://www.charliesflyboxinc.com/flybox/details.cfm?parentID=71

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRMWxob305o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txO5060XNXc

 

[Sekora]

A lot of good info here. I am pretty happy with how my pheasant tails turn out but I'm never real successful with them. After reading this thread I started tying some smaller ones to hopefully up my catch rate on this pattern. The majority of my PT's have been 14's now I'm tying 18-22. I found some bugs in the little j recently that a 22 olive PT should imitate nicely. I'm assuming they were BWO nymphs.

 

[NewSal]

Great replies guys thank you. I'm getting better at my pheasant tails for sure! Starting the thorax a little further back and not wrapping the herl over the pheasant tail, looking much much better. Excited to start fishing them, if I look at my first dozen pheasant tails compared to the dozen I tied last night they are night and day differences.

Sekora -

You have found bugs in the little Juniata recently? have any pictures? I went down yesterday evening and boy that water is HIGH!! But anyways the only bugs I found were stonefly nymphs ( I think) , once they dried out they were a dark brown color with a sort of rusted/yellow/orangish tips and stripes along the body and legs

 

[Sekora]

I fished there 2 weeks ago. Seemed like every stone I picked up had something different attached to it. Lots of caddis and a few nymphs. I figured the larger ones were stones. The small olive nymphs seemed the most consistent.