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The Brown Hackle Peacock,
descended from an ancient line, was the first soft-hackle fly I tied &
fished. The simple pattern was perfect for a novice tier, & proved an
instant hit with trout in the small creeks I fished as a kid in the 1960’s.
That was the fly that provided the direction of my approach to designing &
tying flies, & I’ve been tying & fishing variants of the herl-bodied,
soft-hackle fly ever since – the pattern’s usefulness undiminished.
There are dozens of riffs on
the basic peacock herl body design (everybody ties a slightly different
version), every kind & color of soft hackle, variations of thread &
ribbing, some with tinsel tags, some with tails. I used to carry a lot of
variants, but in attempts to move toward an ideal (visualized more than
practiced I admit) of zen simplicity, I attempt to refine & narrow down.
In the early 1970’s I started
tying a version using a brown-phase ruffed grouse shoulder covert as the hackle,
& thought the mottled grouse hackle an improvement over the original brown
hen hackle. The variant shown here is one of my staples for meeting the mixed
hatches of the Upper Columbia, late spring through early summer when there are
daily hatches of sedges & mayflies, & a major portion of the adults are
a #16 – spotted sedge, march browns… lots of stuff mixed in the slick. And a #14 UC Partridge &
Peacock, with its broad, enticingly ambiguous identity, serves to simulate a
lot. Though I use spotted sedge emerging pupa patterns that look, to me, much
closer to the naturals in appearance, the simple UC P&P seems to turn the
trick as well as any of the more imitative patterns during spotted sedge hatches.
As tying material for trout
flies, partridge & peacock herl possess time-proven mojo. As an all-purpose
nymph, I rate the Partridge & Peacock right up there with the Hare’s Ear,
Pheasant Tail Nymph & Leisenring’s Black Gnat.
UC Partridge & Peacock
Hook: #14
Daiichi 1150 (I tie these in #8-#18, though #14-#15 seems to cover the broadest
spectrum of summer insects on my home water.)
Thread: Rust-brown
UNI 8/0
Rib: Copper
wire
Body: Peacock
herl, twisted with the tying thread – not too fat, 2, or 3 fine herls for a #14
Hackle: Brown-phase
ruffed grouse shoulder covert or brown partridge, one turn – & finish.
Flyfish NE Washington with
Steven Bird: http://ucflyfishing.blogspot.com
