Stripping peacock herl the easy way.

Stripped peacock herl makes an awesome looking body material for dry flies and nymphs, especially in smaller sizes.  Most often, an eraser from a pencil is used to remove the little fibers on the side of the stem.  While this method works, it is very time consuming.  There is a much faster, easier way to remove those pesky little fibers.

What you'll need:
Peacock herl.
Small mixing bowl.
Metal spoon.
2 tablespoons of bleach.
1 cup of water.

Put your one cup of water, and two tablespoons of bleach in your mixing bowl.  Mix well with your spoon.

Select some peacock herl to strip.  I usually use a few of every size.  I try to select herl that has damaged fibers that I probably wouldn't use anyway.

Place the herl in the bowl with the bleach mixture and slowly stir with the spoon for about 1 minute.

After 1 minute (the water should have gotten noticeably cloudy from the fibers falling off), check the herl by lifting some out of the mixture with the spoon.  If there are still fibers attached to any of the stems, replace the stems in the mixture and stir until all the fibers are removed, checking every 15 seconds or so.

If you leave the stems in for too long, they will be noticeably more brittle.  Try to remove the stems as soon as all of the fibers fall off the stem.

When the stems are clean, rinse them out really well with water.

Set these aside on a piece of cardboard or paper towel to dry.  Try to separate the stems as good as you can to speed up the drying process.

Once they are dry, place them butt end first into a hair stacker.

Tap the hair stacker a few times to even up the butt ends.

I like to wrap a small rubber band around the butt ends to keep them together in a bundle.











Stripped peacock herl are naturally a gray color (perfect for mosquito bodies), but they are really easy to dye any color you want.  See this post about dying fly tying materials with Rit dye.