Ideas for emu

[Paul Huffman]

My sister brought me some emu feathers from the Olympia farmers market. Pretty cool stuff. They're like supersized ostrich barbs, or real long filiform plumes: http://ykfp.org/07emu/emu.jpg

To me they suggest needlefish, sandlance, and baitfish patterns. They could be wrapped on a body to make extra large gills on stonefly or hex patterns.

I added some to an intruder tie and it resulted in something that looks like a baby bird: http://ykfp.org/07emu/intruder.jpg

Does anyone else have ideas on how to use these feathers?

[hikepat]

Strip them down to the quill for quill bodied flies. Make sure to soak them in water to make them more pliable first.

Wrap it around the hook and trim into shape for a generic nympth. {I got this idea from some swap flies on another board.} Supper simple fly

Some of the stiff longer single barbules can be used in place of duck biots for tails or wings on the prince nympth and other like flies.

Snip of the tips of the feather off for some nice adult dragon fly wings.

They are fun feathers to tie with. I have a bag of them myself and I have so far come up with the above. Funny thing is when I first looked at them all I thought I could do with them was some salt water flies and I have yet to even try them for that yet.

[Big Tuna]

There was an article in Fly Fisherman about using emu. I'll look around for it. I think it was by Bob Quigley. As I remember, he used emu to tie hackle stacker type dries. I'll let you know if I find it.

Jon

[Big Tuna]

Paul,
I found it. PM me your address and I'll send you a copy of the article.

Jon

[Hal Eckert]

Goood idea will try them on Intruders, been using them for many years on nymph patterns, Hex nymphs like below for steelhead,salmon and trout.

:beer2:

BG


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v231/eckhal1/MichiganHexWigglerNymphs2048x1536.jpg

[sheetfly]

I like to tie it in by the tip and palmer it over seal dub and then pick the dub out as much as I can. The barbs are just stiff enough to hold the dubbing out yet allow some movement. It makes for a very luminescent body without to much bulk. Then make a few tight turns with the wider barbs and then add a marabou collar. The barbs hold the marabou open. I really like the way it looks in the water.

I like the other ideas too. Much more creative than mine. I'll have to try them out.

Scott

[Hal Eckert]

Just picked up a nice big bag of gray emu yesterday at the fly shop, my fly shop owner says he only has a couple of people that use it and I am one of them. Like the breathing effect it has and the steelhead and trout and salmon do too.

:beer2:

BG

[Will Atlas]

try dyeing it with Rit dye (usually for fabric) Make some in purple, fuscia, kingfisher blue and maybe a kind of shrimpy orange.Then bunch tie it into a steelhead fly

[davidstrout]

Sorry about the photo quality (still learning)

Emu feathers are in tail/wing

The look great backlit (like bones or something)