There is one draw back to using peacock herl: it's not very strong. If you were to tie a wet fly body with only one strand of it, wrapped around the hook, it would be destroyed after one fish. The answer is to add more strands & to form them into a rope. This gives them much more strength to last through a few fish bites, at least. In the video below, we see a great way to make this peacock rope.
Those new to fly tying will often begin with the wooly bugger & then go right to basic wet flies. These basic wets almost always have a collar of hackle. The biggest mistake a beginner makes with these collars is that they make them too heavy. It's almost as though we think that it couldn't be that easy to make a decent wet hackle collar, but it really is. Again, we see this in the video below.
For those of you who are new to fly tying, it's so important to get started on the right foot before bad habits creep into your tying. The Peacock & Partridge is a very verastile fly that will catch fish - & it's a great fly to get started tying wet flies with. Check out the very good video below & see how it's done.