Tying Pheasant Tail Perdigons

This week’s post is about tying Pheasant Tail Perdigons. In addition, I’ll offer some detailed information about hooks as well as a heads up about fly shop inventories.

Let me begin with fly shop inventories.

I stopped by my local fly shop yesterday, The Fly Fisher’s Place here in Sister, OR and talked with Jeff Perin. Our conversation included the fly fishing industry boom last year as a result of Covid and people wanting to get out of the house. Both of us thought it would continue this year.

But Jeff expressed concern of having enough inventory in his shop to sell. Certainly, it depends on whether you are looking for rods, reels, waders, or fly tying materials. Lower end rods and reels coming from Asia will find problems in the supply chain. He told me a story of Echo rods and reels sitting on a container ship off Long Beach for several weeks with no timeline of when they will finally reach his shop.

It might be a different story for higher end “stuff” from brands like Sage, Rio, Winston, and Simms. They manufacture some of their products here, but rely on materials that may be made in Asia as well.

I’ve had problems receiving hooks and other fly tying materials from my supplier, Hareline Dubbin. I wonder if it will continue this year.

I just thought I’d offer the information so you could make a run to your local fly shop in case you were thinking of a purchase. It will help your local shop and you might still be able to find a product now as opposed to later this summer. Kinda reminds me of the toilet paper scarcity a year ago!

Now I’ll get back to my fly tying…

I just finished a fly order and decided to tie a few flies for the “provider box”. That’s what my wife calls the storage fly boxes I fill for us.

I hope you read last week’s post, Very Small Flies. I had a good time challenging myself to become proficient tying those small flies, some down to size 24. I thought tying a few nymphs would be a good change of pace.

Between the fly orders I tie for customers, I try to tie flies for myself. There’s nothing more frustrating than going to the provider box and seeing it empty! I ask myself…how many flies did I tie last year and how many were for me?

That’s why I decided it was time to spend a couple of days refilling my perdigon box with my Pheasant Tail Quill Body Perdigon. It’s my most successful nymph these days. Might be because I tie a size 14 on as a point fly most of the time.

I’ve been tying them on a Montana Fly Company model 7204, a hook I really like. It’s a wide gape hook and leaves enough room between the hook point and bead to provide great hooking success.

I also had a couple other jig-style hooks to try, an Ahrex FW551 and Daiichi 4647.

I use a 3.8 mm tungsten bead on these size 14 hooks to get the fly down. I’ve also used a 3.3 mm for slower water on a size 14 hook and on size 16’s.

I finished tying size 14 and 16 flies. Time to move on to 18’s.

Here’s an image of the different hooks.

From left to right, the hooks are:

• Ahrex FW551 #16
• MFC 7204 #16
• MFC 7204 #14
• Daiichi 4647 #14

Notice the difference in the length of hook shanks. It just shows the differences available for you to choose from.

You might ask what UV resin I use.

I’m using Solarez Bone Dry to coat the body of these flies and Gulff Black Magic to imitate the dark wingcase. I purchased the black UV resin from Jeff at The Fly Fisher’s Place. It was before Solarez came out with colored resin.

If you can’t find them at your local fly shop, give Brad or Jeff a call at The Fly Fisher’s Place and they can help you. Jeff also likes UV resin from Pro Sportfisher as well, a product I haven’t used.

He also carries Clark’s Yarn, which I use for the underwing of Clark’s Stonefly and Clark’s Lady Stone I discussed last week. The colors I use are variegated gold, gold, variegated rust, and orange.

Updated 4/3/21: Here is a link to my RiverKeeper Flies YouTube channel:

And another fly tying video I recently added:

Enjoy…go fish, stay safe!