Dry Fly Hackle

[fly-chucker]

I've been wondering about dry fly hackle.

I'm sure that hackle quality has improved considerebly over the past 10 years, my question; how does a bronze grade saddle today compare to saddles from 10 years ago? Would it have been a gold back then? How high has the bar been raised?

I hardly ever tie dry flies so I really have no clue.

Kevin

[Buddy Sanders]

F-C,

I'm not sure that there has been that much of a change in the last ten years in feather quality.

I have several books from the 70s and early 80s where the authors are lamenting the lack of good dry fly hackle.

Seems that the domestic breeders and properly applied genetic techniques have solved that problem for good, as the feathers we have today are far superior in many ways to what has ever been available.

The way that grading scales like Gold/#1, Silver/#2, Bronze...etc.. was explained to me had nothing to do with feather quality, but with feather count. A gold/#1 cape will have more feathers in more sizes than a same colored cape from the same breeder. In many ways, this makes the higher grade capes the best value, as you get more feathers per dollar spent with them.

Whether or not the feather numbers have escalated per cape/grade over the last few years I don't know. I do know that I have three five year old gold capes that will provide all the dry fly hackle feathers I'll liklely need in this life.

Buddy

[WarrenP]

This is a great question for Denny at Conranch (sponsor here). I feel he will be very honest with you and be straight forward. His products are, in my opinion, top of the line and he knows his "feathers"! You could wait for him to answer here or, I would send him a PM.

[Clay]

I think that you will find this link interesting: http://www.whitingfarms.com/articles/grading.html

Here is an hour and a half discussion by Thomas Whiting on hackle, you can download it to your Ipod or listen to it on your computer speakers. You don't have to listen to the whole thing at one time, but it is worth the investment in time: http://www.askaboutflyfishing.com/sp...mas/thomas.cfm

[narcodog]

Whiting introduced the Olympic grading system as a marketing strategy. As was said it has to do with the amount of usable feathers on the hide. Different breeders go for somewhat different effects. Whiting goes fro long thin stems. Collins goes for variegated thin stemmed hackle. The Hebert line varies from Whitings main line. IMO you cannot always get the look you are looking for from breeder. That is one of Whiting philosophy's.

I can tell you that there has been changes in the breeding over the last ten years. That is one reason you can not find good spade hackles any longer as they have been bred out.

I have stuff from the '70's through today and one can really see the difference.

[Wes]

i have both hoffman (original henry hoffman) and whiting's "hoffman". in the beginning whiting's "hoffman" was at least equal to original hoffman but as things progressed and whiting became more and more commercial it seems the qualith has degraded a bit. but as far as improving in the past 10 years i'd say some have and are continuing to improve and some are about the same.

[hap]

The bar has been raised a great deal, but not universally across all colors... A top end grizzly of today is superior to just about any other color and probably a couple grades on some colors with the company that grades with gold, silver and bronze.

I am a little more demanding than Buddy I guess my hackle tubs are huge and I have three of them, all full... Dyed, natural, and hen. I do use them as photo backgrounds with a lot of the studio stuff I do... and they are perfect for that if you have the EXACT right color. But all get used for flies.