Hi all, I have just found a dead cock pheasant in the lane where I live, but he is in good condition and I do get these regularly here as I live in a rural area, can anyone tell me what feathers I should take off this bird (before I give him to the foxes), if someone can tell me exactly where to take the feathers from and maybe even what they are used for this would be great. Reb . . .

No idea other than the tail and the wings, maybe some neck and some off the back.

I would however sling it or the feathers into a very deep freeze for about 4months to kill off as many of the tiny beasties as possible and look at treating it correctly as you don't want any feather mites tranferring to your other tying stuff.

Even better and be ont he safe side, feed the foxes and just buy some feathers that are already treated correctly.

The central few tail feathers for Nymphs. The Older birds are generally the best.
If your doing Sawyers you should look at the markings not so much on the top side but underneath. you will see a dark band that runs along the stem. On some this is only 5-6 mm but on others it can be much wider. These give you the better dark shiny thorax's.

Skin the B*gg*r.......... then you'll have all the feathers and a meal for yourself, sod the fox

The feathers at the rump with the long fibers are great for soft hackling on your wet flies. Here are a couple flies tied with pheasant rump;

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Hares' Ear mask body with pheasant rump feather as hackle, these work well;

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lovely tyings there hardy reels.
Rekindled the desire for a bit of rump.

This might be of interest.

The Ringneck Pheasant

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Carried it in full, then carry it out empty.

the neck pheathers for haul y gwynt.depending on age etc some will be more coloured than others.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Lukasik%29.jpg

i dont know how to post photos so heres the link.

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Thank you all for your advice, and the one that suggested I have some feathers then eat the pheasant was very amusing thankx for that and not a bad idea at that. Thank you all . . . .

Thank you for the link that is fine and tells me a lot about a cock pheasant. many thankx . .