And so - what color cdl?

All about flies Fly Tying
1

Back to the coq de leon tails - and others, also, does color matter? After all, bundles of hair tails are pretty much all just darkish, but other tail fibers come in all differet colors. The CDL that I have seen is just from lightish to darkish speckled, but I see from Don01’s pics that it comes in all colors - does it matter?

2

Herefishy,

I have, and use, Whiting CDL, both hen and rooster, that I use for hackle on wet flies and some tailing on dries. That being said, and in no way intending to sound snobbish, the feathers that are actually from Leon, Spain, are far superior to what Whiting sells. The feathers are individually plucked from live birds and the birds go back to grow some more. The colors, stiffness and sheen that these feathers display are tremendous, and yes, you can tell the difference. Whether or not the fish can tell is another story entirely.

I use the light, medium and dark CDL for different flies, so purchase a few packs of each color every year.

With all the talk of CDL, shouldn’t the hen birds feathers be called Galena de Leon (Hen of Leon) instead of Coq de Leon (Rooster of Leon).

Just my opion, of course.

REEW

3

I got quite a few packs from Paco Soria a few years ago when there was a prediction that there would be trouble getting them, but evidently that didn’t materialize - they are very pretty, and I am hoarding them, but want to get the most out of them. I really liked the pictures of the roosters laying quietly in the lady’s lap getting plucked. Talk about renewable resources. So do you match the colors to the bodies?

4

I use the color that best matches the natural. If I have trouble doing that, I use what pleases my eye the best.

Now, about that stash of feathers you have…

REE

5

Oh, it’s not that big a stash, 'specially if I start using them instead of hoarding them. They’re all the dark pardo, I think, would you like to trade some for a lighter color?

6

Sorry, Buddy, but I’m overstocked (is there such as thing as being overstocked on materials) on dark pardo. Luckily I have a bit of each stashed away for a rainy day, and living in Western Washington, we have lots of rainy days.

REE

7

I bet I use my pardo up now that I’m going to use it for everything. Do you know what ever happened to the problem with the spanish stuff? 3 or 4 years ago? I don’t remember what the prediction was.

8

Hi herefishy,

You can get the spanish tailing CDL over here through any place that sells the Hareline Dubbin brand. Then there is this place in Spain that has it in quite a few colors. http://www.gallosdeleon.com/Ingles/ingles.html If you don’t want to go through them for some reason, Phil Holding at The Flytying Boutique over that way sells them too. He’s also the only shop now that I know of that has a direct pipeline to the folks that supply the old Pearsall’s Gossamer colors, like #4 yellow, 6B old gold, 7 blue, 10 ash, and some of their brand new colors. While doing a quick search on Google for CDL, there’s another place in Spain that sells body feathers as well as the tailing, but I didn’t want to clutter this post up with a bunch of links. It’s easy to find and it has to be fairly new.

Regards,
Mark

9

Thanks, Mark, I will look into those places.