Spade Hackle

On just about all of the capes I've bought in the past few years, I've noticed a distinct lack of decent spade hackle I like for tailing dry flies. Are they breeding these feathers out of the rooster or are they just not including them when they cut the cape off the bird? I've got some older Metz necks with a decent amount of spade feathers and I bought bags of spade hackle from Charlie Collins (great stuff, I can put tails on flies up to #6 with no problem) years ago in brown, dun, ginger and grizzly and won't run out for another decade or so. Just curious.

Regards,
Scott

They are indeed breeding it out.

Also...whiting now sells "Tailing packs" of long, stiff-fibered hackle...

This smells of capitalism...:-P

If you breed a chicken for smaller hackle your spades are going to get smaller too. This can be seen most of all on the saddle spades.
The Collins spades are great, but they are not from the neck they are wing spades. Most other growers just toss them out when they are and always have been the longest spaces on the bird.

Joe Fox

I have always used coq-de-leon. They have extra long spades and make perfect tails. The one i use the most has 2 distinct colors..Cream and blue dun. Buy one cape and you have enough tailing material to last you years..

Denny leaves lots of spades on his saddles...

I like buying whole rooster skins for the variety and the different feathers you get nowhere else...

All birds have Scapular feathers (Spades to we fly tiers) They start at the Humorous (first joint down from the shoulder) and run up across the back, between the cape and saddle hackles. Larger in size is in the middle (over the back bone) getting smaller as one goes back down the other wing. I doubt if they could be "bred out". Note all birds, not just chickens have this spade feather. Very small spades will be found on the wings of the bird. Note: Roosters have a pointed end to the feather and hens are rounded. (this is one of the ways we sex very young birds) Spades for we fly tiers normally come from the rooster. If you select spades from a hen it will be rounded on the end, not pointed.
We here at Conranch choose to not cut them off from the cape or saddle.
Some breeders do cut them off and package them for sale. We do not. If you buy a cape or saddle with no spades, rest assured it has been removed and perhaps is in a small package someplace for about $5.95. + -
If any of you have one of our capes or saddles you do have about 1/2 the Spades the bird had originally. The first cut we make when doing capes & saddles is across the back of the neck, so 1/2 the Spades are on each piece.

Of course like hap says, the "full skins" we produce have lots of feathers you will not see in a shop. Many commercial tiers, customers of mine buy their hackle in full skins.

Sometimes when I have a beautiful color, in the wings I will cut the wings off and bone them out, just for the special spades. Mark left & right so a tier can make matched pairs. I seldom have any for sale, only on special requests.

The spades are considered wet quality, not dry.

There you have it, Spades.

Denny