I was informed of one of the major reasons that the major Cree Supplier has hardly any skins to share with the US Dealers. A guarded source said that there is a fellow who buys product for the lucrative Japanese Fly Tying market. This Kingpin is well-to-do. He flies over here every couple of months and visits "the farm". He then hand-picks the birds that he will take back to Japan when they are done growing. In other words, the flock is being high-graded by this gentleman beacause he has clout and spends big, big bucks to have this privelege.

Then to top that off, I figure that the dealers high-grade the Cree out of the shipments to the stores when they arrive. (Can't blame them if the staff gets a first pick at the cool stuff). That leaves the dregs for us common folk. I am told, again by another good source, that if you call "the farm" that you can get on a waiting list and eventually you will get a pretty good Cree. Sadly, it sounds like the superb skins are being exported-at least from the biggest source of these "Crees".

There sure are other quality sources for Cree Skins. Conranch, Knoll's Farms, and probably others too.

Just throwing this out here for the sake of the discussion. What I have been told may be total Bullfeathers. Sounds plausable to me. Standing by for a Conranch Cree Shipment....

Rich