Bird Fur
Roger and Cathy Bassett make use of some fancy fur-like feathers.
At first we were a bit intrigued by ‘Bird Fur’. It looked like fur, but it was actually long wispy fur-like feathers. It wasn’t as bulky as marabou and it had long soft fibres that stretched out from the stem of the feather.
We decided to try it anyway and tied some into the tail of a couple of ‘Things’ and Dahlbergs, then went to have a look at how they swam in the backyard pool. Whoever said that the fly catches more anglers than fish was probably right, and this Bird Fur is one of those items that goes to prove that saying. In the pool, even though there appeared to be no water movement, the fibres seemed to move on their own. At least we were hooked!
The flies were tied in the ‘standard’ way, with bucktail collars over the Bird Fur tail, leaving about an inch of the Bird Fur fibres trailing. I mention this because it did have an effect on the flies, although at the time we didn’t notice. It was only while fishing recently that we found that the secret to Bird Fur is not to put the bucktail or any other collar over it because it limits the movement of the fibres.
A mate Lyle O’Reilly had tied up a ‘Wild Thing’ and left off the bucktail collar. The standard flies were catching fish—finicky barra that you had to basically coax onto the fly. We had about five in the boat over a half hour period; they were lazy and not really interested, until I put on Lyle’s fly.
On the first cast the bloody fly line got caught around the reel and I had to leave the fly in the water for a couple of seconds. That’s when half a dozen barra swam out and boofed it while it was sitting there. It was fun to watch, and the last one swallowed the fly whole. From then on it was a barra a cast for fifteen casts, while my mate with the other flies in similar colours was not interesting the fish. My brilliant technique? Not really—the Bird Fur splayed out and with the tidal movement and clear water, had a definite attracting effect on the fish.
I have yet to try it on the ’toga and hope it has the same effect.
Produced by Whiting Farms, each Bird Fur patch is one-half of a full, large Spey Rooster saddle. Trade enquiries to Clarkson Imports: 03 9758 7722.