Got a pheasant... now what?

[mark b]

Couldn't resist it... riding home from work this morning saw a roadkill cock pheasant (beautiful colours in the sun light) lying in the verge so pulled the scooter over, picked the bird up and strapped it to the back rack.

Apart from pulling a few feathers though, what do I do with the rest?

Any tips appreciated

Thanks

Mark

[danielp]

eat it?

pull tail feathers, microwave and freeze.

skin the breast/throat area for the melanistic feathers scrape and dry then microwave and freeze

they are the only bits I normally take

[andy macbog]

I usually just look over the bird for 'nice' feathers, pluck 'em, bag 'em, microwave and the job's a good 'un. You could preserve the skin and all that but it is a faff and there's never a shortage of dead pheasants if you need more!

Wings can be quickly and easily dried, as can animal tails (squirrel, for example).

Just my way,

Andy

[Chris Reeves]

I always dismantle the pheasant totally and put each type of feather into a grip lock bag.

For me the Church windows make great soft hackles for large caddis imitiations, The Chestnut ones with black tips are used for an early season fly again as a soft hackle, they are also popular in Welsh wet flies
The neck hackles are great for spiders,
The rump feathers are good for Salmon shrimps, they dye easily too.
The wings can provide feathers for slip wings, rolled wings and spiders. I use wing feathers for invictas as they are easier to work than Hen pheasant tail feathers.
Tail is obvious,
There was a "Haynes workshop manual" type of article in one of hte mags a couple of years ago where they broke down all the feathers that you could use for pheasant, mallerd and partridge.

Don't forget the advice re microwave and freezing though.

Cheers

[mark b]

Thanks for the replies everyone. How long roughly should they be microwaved for?

Tightlines

Mark

[flytier07]

Originally Posted by mark b

Thanks for the replies everyone. How long roughly should they be microwaved for?

Tightlines

Mark

10-30 seconds will do-any longer and you may damage the fibres