Hi Zac,
Like the others mentioned, you want stiff dry fly type feather barbules to support the weight of the fly. You do not want it to be webby, as webby absorbs water. The rooster hackle of good dry fly quality has almost no web, and it is stiff so it will support the weight of the fly.
The generic hen hackle is soft, not stiff, and the stuff is webby and will thus absorb water. In short generic hen make very poor dry fly tailing.
The best dry fly tailing used to come from spade hackle feathers which were found on the sides of dry fly capes. I have some older Keough capes that have excellent spade hackle on them, and as such I will keep them even when the good hackle is gone, except for the spade hackle.
These spade hackle feathers had long, straight, stiff, and web free barbules, which were ideal for tailing.
Unfortunately, in their efforts to improve the quality of capes by selective breeding, the genetic breeders have almost completely bred out the spade hackle, and most of my capes have none present at all. It is very difficult to find any on many modern capes.
Because of the difficulty of finding good tailing, Whiting imported some of the Coq de Leon roosters from Spain, and now breeds them and sells the hackle. I have seen some that was superb tailing. The Coq de Leon roosters are bred for hackle.
The old Catskil type patterns used spade hackle tailing. However, this type of tailing does have some disadvantages, the big one being that it does float a dry fly in rough water very well.
To solve the floating problem, famous fly tyer/fisherman Lee Wulff came up with better floating flies. To do this he went with various other tailing (and wings) types, one of which you should have great access to. That one was to use bucktail for tailing. (Do a search on the net for the the “Gray Wulff”, which uses whitetail buck tail for wings and tailing.)
Other commonly used tailing for Wulffs includes elk hair, moose, and whitetail deer hair. On a white tail, the best hair for tailing and winging hair comes from the center of the back.
Being a hunter in Kansas you should have good access to white tail hide (again for winging or tailing you want a chunk of hide from the center of the back), and too, white tail buck tails make good tailing on Wulffs, if available in the right color.
In short you should have a supply of tailing locally in Kansas.
I tie a Catskill syle fly every now and then because they are fun to tie, and frankly no dry fly looks classier to my eye than a nicely tied Catskill dry fly such as a light Cahill or a classic hair wing streamer. They are also good at catching fish. However, I primarily fish fairly quick small creeks on those rare ocassions when I get to fish the Rockies, so I want a pattern that will primarily float well. That leaves the Catskills out, and I primarily fish Wulffs for mayfly patterns, and palmered varities of caddis flys and stone flys when fishing for hatches involving those insects.
Regards,
Gandolf