Tying Pink Things and Wild Things for the BSSS boat boxes

So far in the flies tied for the BSSS Boat boxes, we've covered species who frequent the surface (Crease Fly) and the depths (Clouser Minnow Fly)

Now to cover the Barra, and Threadies

The Pink Thing has been an Australian SWOFFING icon fly, since the early eighties.
Origins spoken about a lot in fly fishing magazines - so wont go into that except the NT as being part of its development.

Basically a whistler style pattern - feathered tail, bushy feather based collar, and beadchain eyes
I tie this pattern all in rabbit fur more than I use a feather based traditional style.

However, for the flies to go in the Boat box being made up for BSSS, I will be using some awesome feathers off some full capes supplied for the purpose of tying these flies by NTFFSM founders (the imfamous Rodgie Dodgie and the famously and wonderfully talented Cathie)

So I will have to put on my tying helmet and ensure the "Fly Tying Stig" is up to the challenge of tying some good flies with these quality capes.

Both patterns are basically the same - the difference being primarily and obviously the colours

Lets start tying......
Start with matching up six white feathers for tail - curve in or out is a choice to make. When placed on hook curve out you can get an enhanced kick and flutter. However, for these flies I will tie it curve in. I suggest you take the paired feathers from one side of the cape for one side of fly and from the other side of cape for the other side of the fly - puts the tendency of the feather to sit correctly when stripped through the water.
Like always when tying a number of flies,  I set out all the materials, pre-trimmed of fluff etc, for the feathers I put them between two bits of foam and place a weight on them to keep them all in place

Tying sequence......
Tie on some flash material to go between the paired feather of fly tail
Tie in feathers to form tail section of fly - 3 on each of hook shank
Tie in a grizzle hackle feather each side
tie in a bunch of bucktail - helps keep feather from wrapping into hook bend
Depending on hook shank length, more so on longer shank hooks I would add some crystal or ice chenille for back third of hook shank - adds a subtle mini collar the main collar can flare over.
Tie in your eyes and V shaped mono weed guard now - I find it so much easier to wind the collar up to the eyes than tie eyes and guard in later
Tie in tip of collar feather and wrap around the hook shank flare the feather barbels, keep tying in more feathers until you have a thick full collar
Here, I am using high quality spey feathers from a cape, Spey feather make a collar a bit more sparse than other materials than i usually use. However a mate outfished me by a factor of 4 to 1 using a pick this with such a collar compared to my schapplen based collar at the time. other materials you could use are marabou, rabbit fur, schapplen hackle, normal hackle, even a self made dubbing brush can be used for the collar made from synthetics or natural or combination of both. Love using 'Bird Fur' feathers for this but haven't seen any anywhere for a while now.
I swap threads now and form a tapered thread head in a a hot shot colour - this case fluoro pink.

The wild thing is basically the same but in the colourings of that ever successful soft plastic, the Nuclear Chicken (just not coloured horizontally like the soft plastic) - fluoro feathered tail and hot pink collar.