The garden variety of Golden and Lady Amherst and Amgolds when they are paired are fairly common to most tyers. But there are other often bizarre tippets produced by crossing these birds with others not closely related. Many of these are one of a kind, random feathers. Over the years, I have collected quite a few birds and some friends had others that they kindly gave me enough feathers to tie a fly or two.

This series of flies was inspired by a classic Salmon pattern, The Ranger series of flies which sport tippet wings. I used to hate tying tippet wing flies. The blunt tips of the feathers posed a problem when using a tail and topping that met at the tip of the wing which tippets don’t really have a “tip” in the conventional meaning of the word. The tyers of old stuck a Jungle Cock pair of feathers in that empty space behind the wing. Still, there is a lot of empty space. For me, these were difficult to get “right” so I avoided them at all cost.

Well, one day recently, I got to thinking about tying essentially the same fly but using tippets and other feathers from the same bird when possible and do a series I call my “Rangeresque” flies. The names are the names of the birds the tippets came from when known.

You will note that I didn’t follow a strict set of rules when I tied these flies. I played with conventional thinking. I decided not to have any of the flies with tails and toppings that meet. Interestingly, this seems to visually negate the empty space some. I rather like the looks and since many of the old fly plates show a great number of flies tied this way. On a few particularly rarer birds, I might have had limited feathers to make pairs from so some don’t match as well as others. And you could call some of it sloppy tying.

I hope you like the flies and find the feathers as interesting as I do. As crazy as some of these are, I know that there are still others out there that are even wilder.


The one that started it, The Durham Ranger. Jock Scott, Stout 7/0 hook.

Unless noted, the head/neck or full skins that these feathers came from are mine. Most of the flies have the toppings/tails from the same head as the tippets.


The Group


The Lady Amherst Ranger
The wing is made up of tippets from the “common” Lady Amherst Pheasant.


Amgold Ranger 1
The wing and tail/topping are Amgold Pheasant. I present three Amgold with slightly different colouration. They often have a slight “peachy” colour.


Amgold Ranger 2


Amgold Ranger 3


Cinnamon Ranger This wing is from The Cinnamon Golden.


Cinnamon x Splash, 2nd Generation Ranger.
This wing comes from Cinnamon x Splash, 2nd Generation. Is I said, every time you introduce Splash Golden into the batch, you have the potential for a lot of random variety.


Cinnamon x Splash, 1st Generation Ranger.
Again, we have a Cinnamon Splash and it is nothing like the first one. I expect it is a first generation.


Dark Throat Golden Ranger.


Impeyan x Golden Ranger
John Kilmer, a friend of mine who use to breed and cross breed birds gave me a few feathers for this series. These were just a few feathers so the crests/topping and tail did not come from this bird.


Peach Golden Ranger 1
The wing here is from the relatively new breed, the Peach Golden. The topping and tail are also from the same bird.


Peach Golden Ranger 2.
This wing, tail and topping are from another Peach Golden Pheasant.


Peach x Salmon Ranger
The tail, topping and wing are from a Peach x Salmon Golden Pheasant.


Durham Ranger
This is a pretty standard classic dressing, the Durham Ranger. The wing, topping and tail are from the common Red Golden Pheasant


Red Golden Ranger 2
My friend John McLain gave me these tippets and we suspect that they are simply variants of the common Red Golden Pheasant. I’ve never seen such bold red colouring in the body of the tippets.


Salmon Ranger.
The topping and tippets on this fly are from the Salmon Golden Pheasant.


Silver Golden Ranger.
The topping, tail and wing are from a Silver Golden Pheasant that my friend Bud Guidry gave me. There is a total absence of colour in the tippets and crests.


Unknown Ranger.
These striking tippets are from an unknown breed/cross breed of Golden Pheasants. They were given to me by my friend John McLain for this project.


Yellow Neck Golden Ranger.
These tippets are from a Yellow Neck Golden Pheasant that sere given to me by John Kilmer for this project.


Yellow Golden Ranger.
These tippets, tail and topping are from a Yellow Golden Pheasant.

I hope you find these feathers interesting. And, if you have or, know of anyone who has unusual breeds of Goldens or for that matter, unusual birds/feathers, let me know.

Happy Trails!
Ronn