I was look at some patterns recently and it called for Cree? I’m not sure what this is.
sometimes they’re called barred ginger, barred white, etc., etc.
If you don’t need to pay the price for cree, just tie with a mix of brown/grizzly, or ginger/grizzly. High quality hackle in those colors is readily available and affordable. I’ve got 2 cree capes, a Metz #2 and one from Charlie Collins; the Metz is neat to look at but nothing special to tie with, the Collins has nice hackle but is really more of a barred ginger in the smaller feathers. I also have a barred cream from Collins that looks like a faded cree; I really like that one. Unless you’re trying to be historically accurate for some specific patterns or have unlimited cash, go with the mixes; fish don’t seem to care.
Regards,
Scott
The difference in in a Cree hackle is the addition of the white barring I believe? I have a Metz Cree and a Whiting Barred Ginger variant look-alike…no white in the Barred ginger variant. Aside form that it takes a 2nd look.
Denny just sold one, but this image should give you another pretty good idea of “Cree”. Classified section of the BB.
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?37686-Cree-Mature-Hen-Sold
I love looking at and using Cree, it gives a segmentation that others don’t. My favorite neck is a dun Cree I bought from Collins.
Current Bronze Cree Neck & Silver Cree Saddle
Close up of Current Neck
Close up of Current Saddle
Older Whiting Cree Saddle
Close up of older saddle
Current Bronze Cree Neck & Silver Cree Saddle
Close up of Current Neck
Close up of Current Saddle
Older Whiting Cree Saddle
Close up of older saddle
I believe a Cree is is cross between Coachman Brown and Grizzly. If you will look at the feathers in the neck/saddle that have not crossed, you will see Grizzly and Coachman Brown/Furnace feathers. If I recall correctly, Tom Whiting, the owner of Whiting said that only 10% of this cross results in an acceptable neck and saddle. Whiting destroys the other 90% of the cross.
There is a neck/saddle that is Barred Ginger. I would not term this a Cree. I believe a true Cree is Coachman Brown and Grizzly so that you can tie an Adams with a single hackle rather than using a combined Coachman Crown and Grizzly Hackle.
Although Cree is difficult to obtain, from talking to some experts in hackle, they say the rarest quality hackle is NOT Cree but Dun. It is much easier to get a quality Cree because it is a cross of two colors of hackle that already both have excellent stem and barb quality. But Natural Dun has poorer quality stems and hackle barbs and the only way to get a good quality NATURAL dun is by breeding the line. That is why quality stem Dun is the hackle color that is often not natural but dyed to get quality hackle.
So I wonder about that “Dun” Cree. I’ve never seen one and I wonder about the stem and barb quality on it. How is the quality compared say to a Grizzly or Brown from the same breeder?
What are the views of others on the quality of Dun hackle?
Silver, is this an example?
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?37691-Full-skin-New-Color-Sold
Ducksterman,
That’s Denny’s new color. You’ll notice he calls it Cree-Like. Instead of a true black bar, Denny’s new color has a beautiful dark dun bar. The other colors are true to the Cree coloring, but because it’s not a true black, Denny calls it his new color and Cree-Like. I am fortunate to have a neck and saddle of Denny’s new color and it looks sooooo close to Cree. The fish haven’t been able to tell the difference since I started tying with it.
REE
The trick for all successful breeders is to supply their market needs, which in turn, should supply flies that the fish are attracted to. All of the qualities in the cape or saddle- feather, barbs, stems, etc. mean nothing until they are palmered around the hook on a fly pattern. All of the qualities of good dry fly hackle need to be there upon scrutiny. So thereafter it boils down to color, and that is open to a lot of subjectivity. I know of two traditional patterns that used brown and grizzly feathers together, and that is the Adams and the humpy. There are probably more, and then the variations of other patterns that are ‘enhanced’ by cree. But if you tie an Adams with a 50-50 balance of brown and grizzly, you get a ‘look’ as you hold it at arms length. Then compare that to an indentical pattern using cree instead of the two colors, and you should get the same look. One of the ‘stipulations’ of a true cree is that all of the colors are represented on each barb- black, brown, ginger, cream. While the fly is hi-floating, I don’t think cree coloration matters to much. But as the fly starts breaking the surface film and is drifting lower in the water, more of the color is apparent to the fish. Now whether brown/grizzly or cree is more effective is open to debate and makes necessary many and repeated trips to the rivers and lakes to test all suppositions and presumptions. And then those outcomes need to proved again to make sure.