The nature of feather construction

Intro

By Wayne Luallen
We have all read fly patterns that refer to quills, barbs, barbules, fibers, shafts, stems, vanes and so forth, but when we read these terms do we know what they have reference to? This article sets all these terms and many more straight.
Contents
1 We need to have standards
2 To whet the appetite
3a Feather Anatomy 101, a
3b Feather Anatomy 101, b
4 Tremendous variety
5 Understanding marrying
6 Feather Types
7 Feather Names
8 The wing feathers
9 Stages of plumage
10 Summation
11 Definitions
12 References

The first chapter >>>

A part of learning to do flies like this one is learning to know the main material: feathers.
See Wayne's fly in full size.

Recommend this page to a friend

Want to comment this page? Fill out the form below.
Comment Only comments in English are accepted!
Your name		Your email
Notify me on new comments to this article on the above email-address. You don't have to comment to start or stop notifications. All comments will be screened by the GFF staff before publication. No HTML, images, ads or links, please - we do not publish such comments... And only English language comments will be published. Name and email is optional but recommended. The email will be shown in a disguised form in the final comment to protect you against spam You can see other public comments on this page

Did you find the above interesting?
These other stories on "Fly Tying Materials - All the suff we use for our flies, feathers, hair, synthetics" might also interest you: Better tinsel bodies Smooth: How to tie a nice, even, ribbed tinsel body. Here's one way. The description assumes that you want a silver body. If you want gold, just replace 'silver' with 'gold' below. Go to the story Hooks for streamers raske streamers: The hook is the foundation on which a good streamer is built. When streamer anglers meet, quite often it's the subject of heated debate! I've listed a variety of the streamer hooks available on the market today (and some no longer available) in the table in the article. Go to the story More about Fly Tying Materials
A few random articles for your entertainment Going deep This is the second article in the series "Nymphing From Top-to-Bottom: The Untold Secrets". This article covers ways to get a fly to fish deep in the water by adding weight or using different lines and casting or mending techniques. April 19th 2004 Chasing Gold South America's Golden Dorado is famous for its beauty and its willingness to chase a fly. German Heiko Schneider has moved to Argentina and has now adapted the Dorado as his preferred quarry. Togther with his wife Carolina he chases the Dorado in the lakes. July 4th 2010 At long last GFF partner Martin managed to get his hands on a great new recorder and immediately went fishing and recorded his first podcast in months! The podcast is mostly about that: recording again, but also covers the recently held GFF Summit in Denmark and a few other subjects. October 2nd 2007 The White The White is a stable pattern in originator Rasmus Hansen's coastal sea trout flybox, He uses it as a provocation (read: attractor) or as a shrimp imitation, and prefers it for turbulent water and autumn fishing. The fly is simple, one color only, and one of these universal flies that can catch anything. June 1st 2009