Pheasant Palmered Kebari
Pheasant Palmered Kebari
While the majority of my tenkara fishing is done with a sakasa kebari, I’ve also been experimenting with some hybrid flies that combine the fish catching qualities borrowed from my days steelhead fishing and classic British palmered flies. “Palmered” just means that the hackle is wound through the body of the fly rather than just at the head (like a wooly bugger). The reason I mention steelhead fishing is because this style of fly reminds me of the Spey flies I used to use on the lake run rainbow in the tributaries of the Great Lakes. Palmered flies, or “palmers”, spread the hackle out more giving the impression of more movement and segmentation–qualities I think are important attractors for fish. I rarely put tails on my Tenkara flies but decided to on this one just to do something a little different. Essentially this fly is a spin on the venerable pheasant tail nymph.
Hook: Owner Super Yamame #7
Loop Eye: #2 silk bead cord, brown
Thread: orange 8/0
Tail: golden pheasant tippet
Body: ringneck pheasant tail
Ribbing: small copper wire
Thorax: peacock herl
Hackle: furnace
To see more examples of palmered flies I’ve tied, check out the blog post I wrote on the Tenkara USA blog here.
Like a mini spey fly
Related Posts
10 comments
Leave a Reply
About Me
Jason Klass is a former fly fishing guide who now exclusively fishes Tenkara for trout in the streams and lakes of Colorado...Read More
Pretty fly!
-Tom
Never fail to amaze me with your flies. And how many thousands of the owner hooks do you have, I was looking at a bunch of your flies for some inspiration the other day and so many of them are on the owner hooks!
And the tail?
Great!
&
Happy birthday to you!
Beautiful looking fly, Jason! I haven’t tried tying flies on eyeless hooks yet. In your opinion, what are the advantages? Seems like it would give nymphs a bit more action under the surface in the current.
Hi Jim, sorry, it’s golden pheasant tippet. I’ve updated the recipe.
Thanks Vlad!
Honestly, I don’t think there are any advantages other than just looking cool. People say that there’s a difference in action but I did an underwater video comparing eyed and eyeless flies and didn’t see any difference: http://www.tenkaratalk.com/2012/02/underwater-comparison-of-eyed-vs-eyeless-tenkara-flies/
Interesting, doesn’t seem to make much of a difference other then looking cool. Nice video, thanks for posting it!
Thank you, Jason. I thought it might be. This is a very nice fly and suspect it will be very good on the water.