Wood Duck Mallard Spey

Wood Duck Mallard Spey Feathers

Real wood duck flank is great until you need a feather long enough to wing a spey fly. Then you find out how short and expensive it is. Wood Duck Mallard Spey gives you that warm, lemon-barred look on a jumbo mallard feather with the length to actually use it.

Twelve jumbo feathers per pack, hand-picked for steelhead and salmon tiers. Tent them for wings, wrap them as soft collars, or pull fibers for tails and throats. They’re the warm-toned answer when Natural looks too cold and Bronze isn’t on the bench.

Long, clean and barred. Every feather usable.

Recipe 1: Golden Demon Spey

• Hook: Size 2 to 6 up-eye salmon or spey hook
• Thread: Black 8/0
• Tail: Golden pheasant crest
• Body: Flat gold tinsel
• Rib: Fine oval gold tinsel
• Hackle: Hot orange schlappen or Hot Orange Mallard Spey, wound as a collar
• Wing: Matched strips of Wood Duck Mallard Spey, low over the body
• Head: Black

How to fish it: The Golden Demon is a summer and early-fall steelhead classic. Fish it on a floating line in clear water with some sun on it. Gold flashes well in bright conditions. Swing it through riffles and the heads of pools, and fish the inside seam before you wade out to the main current.

Recipe 2: October Caddis Spey

• Hook: Size 4 to 8 spey or wet fly hook
• Thread: Orange 8/0
• Body: Burnt orange SLF or Ice Dub, slightly shaggy
• Rib: Fine gold wire
• Hackle: Brown schlappen, sparse, through the front half
• Collar: Two turns of Wood Duck Mallard Spey
• Head: Brown dubbing, a short collar behind the eye

How to fish it:

October caddis show up in fall on many western rivers, and both steelhead and big trout key on them. Fish it on a floating line with a long leader. Swing it near the surface in the afternoon and evening. A few fish will boil on the fly without taking. Keep swinging; the second pass gets them.