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.

Dyeing your own fly tying materials in your microwave.

Dying your own fly tying materials is very easy.  It is also much cheaper to only buy (or shoot) the naturally colored materials, and then dye them to any shade of any color you like.  It's even cheaper yet if you collected the materials yourself.

There are several different methods people use to dye their fly tying materials.  Two of the most popular methods include using Kool-aid packets, and Rit clothing dye.  I prefer the Rit dye method mainly because it's fast, and it's much easier to achieve the exact color you want by tweaking the measurements of your dyes.  Rit has an excellent color formula guide found here: https://www.ritdye.com/colorit_color_formula_guide.  This guide will show you what proportions to mix your dye to achieve 500 different colors.

Popular fly tying materials to dye include synthetic and natural dubbing (rabbit, muskrat, etc.), neck, or saddle hackle, biots,  stripped peacock herl, Deer/Elk hair, and pretty much anything else you can imagine (I don't recommend dying CDC feathers using this method though, since it will remove the natural oils that help keep CDC so buoyant).


You will need:
Rit powdered dye (the one that comes in the box).  Any colors you choose.
A metal mixing bowl.
A strainer/colander.
Cardboard to dry your wet materials.
A glass jar with a plastic lid, or plastic wrap with rubber bands (microwave safe).
A sink.
Dish soap.
Microwave.
Measuring cup and measuring spoons.
Metal spoon for mixing.

Start by cleaning your materials in warm, soapy water.  Swish the materials around with your hand  to clean the grease and grime off the material which will make it easier for the dye to penetrate.

Let the materials soak.  In the meantime, prepare your dye.






I am using one teaspoon of Golden Yellow, and one teaspoon of Dark Green in 3/4 of a cup of water to get a really nice olive color.










Add your powder dye's to the jar.











Add 3/4 cup of water, and mix thoroughly with a metal spoon.  Make sure all of the powder is dissolved.










Rinse out your materials that were soaking in warm soapy water.  Make sure all of the soap is removed.  The easiest way to do this is to put the materials in a colander or a strainer, and rinse well with warm water.








Place your materials in the dye.  In this example I am using stripped turkey feather biots which are stiff and stick out of the jar.  That's fine, just flip the materials over half-way through the heating process to ensure there is dye covering the material.







I use these half pint jars with microwave safe plastic lids.  I screw the lid on about half way so steam can escape.  You can also use plastic wrap with rubber bands holding it place.  Just poke a few holes in the plastic wrap before you heat it.

Put the jar in your microwave, on top of some paper towels for 30 seconds.

Then let the jar cool for 30 seconds.

Microwave jar for 15 more seconds, let it cool for about 30 seconds, and then microwave it for a final 15 seconds.

Your microwave time may vary.  Microwaving in increments is just the method I found to work best without spilling dye all over my microwave.  You should not need to exceed one minute total microwaving time. If the dye mixture start bubbling over, stop your microwave.

Let the jar cool for about 5 minutes.

Remove your materials from the jar and rinse thoroughly with water to remove the left over dye.

At this time make sure the materials are the color you wanted.  If they are not colored dark enough, you can repeat the microwave step until the desired color is achieved.

Lay your materials out on a piece of cardboard or paper towel until they are fully dried.











Good luck!  I hope you find dyeing your own materials as rewarding as I have!