kenough necks

i have seen these necks at jays sportinggoods and for a medium one it is about 30 buck. is this a good deal, and are the good to tie with? And what 2 colors should i invest in?

Take the neck out of the package and bend one of the stems... Do the same with a better neck and you should see a pretty dramatic difference... The Keough capes I have tied with have not impressed me.

I think it would be fair to call them the new tyers' nightmare...

Grizzly is the first "have to have" and brown is usually listed as the second... I would prefer a gold badger or a furnace. But I also have dozens of top end capes and saddles so I am spoiled. No need to buy a whole cape to start. Several places will sell half-capes and half and quarter saddles... Stick to capes for the basics because of the size range of the cape hackle.
art

Conranch hackles in the sponsors section here will sell you one half brown and one half grizzly neck for one price. I believe that might be your best starter set. http://www.flyanglersonline.com/cgi-....conranch.com/

If you are beginning, I wouldn' t buy necks/capes. buy dry fly 1/4 or 1/2 saddles. the only thing I use capes for anymore is for the really small stuff...stuff beginners should hold off for a while. Since you will probably be tying sizes 16 and bigger for dries to start with, go with a saddle.

Grizzly is a must. Other than that, I would go with a badger or silver badger.

Ditto with maodiver, 1/4 and 1/2 saddles are the way to go. Each feather is easy to use and usually ties numerous flies. Whiting/Hoffman sells the 1/4 packs for around $14 and they also sell 100's packs that are very user friendly in those colors that you don't need too many of.
Good Luck.

Kelly.

I have a couple Keough Grade 2 capes I bought a few years ago and they're okay. I also have one in a Pro Grade/Tyers Grade (or whatever it's called) and it's a piece of junk (only payed $7.00 so no big deal). For $30 you can get Hebert/Miner Pro Grade capes (not quite the quality of Whiting capes but very good). Charlie Collins has very nice hackle, too, for the same price. As mentioned, saddles are nice if your only tying flies in a limited range of sizes; not all are the same though and you need to check them for size and quality. I have some Metz # 2 saddles that are good for buggers and such, but don't tie down to anything much smaller than a #12 and have way too much web for most dry fly apps (I do like them for some of the foam bodied dries I tie). I've been buying Whiting 100 packs and really like them, as well. Three colors I use most are ginger, brown and grizzly; depending on what kind of bugs you're trying to imitate, you may want dun, too.

Regards,
Scott

Agreed on the Whiting 100 packs. You can't go wrong with those. Just make sure you get the correct size.