For smaller flies peacock wing is a good sub for speckled bustard also.
Turkey is fine for the larger flies. Florican is a tough one. Golden
pheasant tail feathers are hard to tie with. If you get an Amgold pheasant
tail it is supposed to be a little easier to use. They sell a turkey
feather that is dyed to sub for this but I'm not fond of them. Turkey is a
much thicker feather than goose so you can have trouble if your mix the two
and if you use just turkey it should be on a larger hook as it will be a
bulky wing. If your wing is collapsing a lot look at the different textures
in the feathers you're using also. You may be making it tougher on yourself
if you're mixing it up too much.
I use the red feathers you find on the throat of your Golden Pheasant for my
Indian Crow sub. I haven't found anything that works as well as Kingfisher
for Chatterer sub.
If you want to get really fancy use the white feathers on the ringneck and
dye them in orange koolaid.... then tip dye them in red. You need to use
rubber washers on the base of the feathers to keep the red from spreading to
the rest of the feather. You can then crimp the tips with a wooden clothes
pin. I don't do this... it's too much work. :0) I would rather be tying.
I honestly don't like the shape of this feather as compared to the real
Indian crow either so I don't go to that much trouble. I would rather use a
feather with a natural red color so I use the GP neck feathers or some other
little red birds I have here that cost too much to bother with also. IMHO
I'm still on the hunt for one that makes me happy. I'm very picky. I
finally have a nice selection of real IC to match my subs up to. I have
four or five different varieties. They all have a little different look to
them. Look at http://www.feathersmc.com/home.php This site has a graphic
at the top that shows many of the feathers and their subs. If you have time
to navigate through it you will also see some examples of the real deal and
they are beautiful. You can use this to match up your own subs.
Regards,
Deb
