Fluorescent Purple Mallard Spey

Fluorescent Purple Mallard Spey Feathers

Purple is the steelhead color that doesn’t get enough credit outside the people who already know. It holds its silhouette like black in low light and still glows a little when the sun gets on the water. That’s why the Purple Peril is still in boxes 80-some years after it was first tied.

Twelve jumbo fluorescent purple mallard spey feathers per pack, hand-picked for steelhead and salmon tiers. Long enough to wing and collar a big spey fly, with barring that keeps the color from looking flat.

Tie it as a wing, a collar, or a throat. All 12 feathers are keepers.

Recipe 1: Purple Spey

• Hook: Size 1/0 to 4 Alec Jackson spey hook
• Thread: Purple or black 8/0
• Tag: Flat silver tinsel
• Body: Rear third purple floss, front two-thirds purple seal or SLF dubbing
• Ribs: Flat silver tinsel with fine oval silver tinsel behind it
• Hackle: Purple schlappen or spey hackle, palmered from the second turn of rib
• Throat: Fluorescent Purple Mallard Spey, one turn
• Wing: Matched strips of Fluorescent Purple Mallard Spey, tented low

How to fish it: A winter and late-fall fly for overcast days and early mornings. Fish it on a Skagit head and a sink tip matched to the run: T-8 for walking-speed riffles, T-11 or T-14 for deeper, faster water. Swing it slow and deep. Winter fish don’t move far, so put it in their face.

Recipe 2: Purple Peril Spey

• Hook: Size 2 to 6 up-eye salmon hook, black
• Thread: Black 8/0
• Tail: Purple hackle fibers
• Body: Purple floss or fine purple chenille
• Rib: Oval silver tinsel
• Hackle: Fluorescent Purple Mallard Spey, wound as a collar
• Wing: Natural Mallard Spey or brown bucktail, low over the body
• Head: Black

How to fish it:

The Purple Peril was born on summer steelhead rivers, and it still works there. Fish it on a floating line with a long leader in clear, low water. Cast square to slightly downstream and let it swing just under the surface. If you get a boil and no hookup, rest the fish two minutes, change nothing, and cast again.