Quote Originally Posted by Ray Kunz View Post
...as would have been used when fly fishing was first being developed in the Catskills.
I think you'll find the history of fly fishing goes back just a little further than that, about 2000 years further.

However, I do know what you mean about the proliferation of synthetics. There is little or no difference between many of them. Very few if any are originally fly tying materials. It is a case of finding something useful and then marketing it as a fly tying material. Famously the stuffing of a pillow turned into SLF Dubbing. A friend, Barry Ord Clark, of mine wrote a book on what many of these materials really are. International Guide to Fly-Tying Materials, much to the chagrin of the fly tying materials retailers.

If you want to see traditional flies you will not get more traditional than this. The Greenwell's Glory (Wet and dry) tied using original materials and a hackle from a home processed cape off domestic fowl.
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The cape may look black but is in fact a dark coch-y-bonddhu.

Cheers,
A.