Before anyone jumps up an says get a life, there is a reason that I did this. My dear friend Ray Yeutter and I had Bob Gaston dye a 1/4 midge saddle for us. This was a Bronze grade grizzly that we had dyed dun (only the white took the dye of course).
We split and sized the hackle and then I counted them. The yield was 3-#22s, 28-#20s, 86-#18s, 30-#16s.
The 16s were all short should yield 2-3 flies per feather. The rest of the batch were as you would expect 8-12 flys per feather. At 10 flies per feather this should yield about 90-100 dozen flies 18 and smaller. Not bad for a $32 investment, Bob charges $5 for dying the 1/4.
So when you look at that saddle hanging in your favorite shop, it is really pretty cheap.
That is my count times two. I think there were also two size 22s that I let Ray have, but it cost him dearly ;-).
Did learn a neat way to sort the hackle. After we sized it just took a sheet of typing paper and folded it accordian style. Put sorted hackle in a fold, mark it with a pen and then put a paper clip over the paper and slip it back in the long plastic bag.
Didn’t take but about 15 minutes to size the whole 1/4 saddle. Worth it.
For those interested enough in counting feathers (per size), but not keen enough to pluck, sort and store, here is an alternative approach which will give a pretty good indication.
Feathers grow in distinct tracts on the bird’s body, so also on the neck and the saddle. Turn over the neck or saddle and you shoudl be able to see these tracts as as small dots, which when you visualize them ‘connected’ form a gently curved set of concentric patterns.
Mark the areas in hook size ranges and count the dots. You do not need to count every dot on the skin, just group like-size regions and extrapolate from there for a pretty accurate set of figures.
As an aside… I attended the Danish Fly Festival over the past weekend and sat in on a presentation on the Whiting farm and its products.
During the presentation one of the questions addressed is: What is a bird?
In popular science terms a bird is in essence the direct decendant of a dinosaur.
In Tom Whiting’s terminology a bird is: An organic repository of flytying materials.
That is quite interesting, made me go look at a couple of necks. Another way to evaluate a neck.
Please understand, I am not going to count the hackles on any of my other necks/saddles. Ray is one of my dearest friends, I would drink his last beer and he mine ;-). We asked Bob to divide the saddle for us, he also being a good friend, wouldn’t do unless we were both present. It all became quite funny when it was over.
I just figured since they were allready sized and my half wasn’t that many why not count and post them.
I like Mr. Whitings description of a chicken. In my early years I used to catch them for money. Cleaning out large brooder houses(10-20,000 birds). Hate chickens with a passion.
baldmidge
There were a number of interesting bits of information in the Whiting presentation. Try this one for size: A Gold saddle is rated to provide hackle for approx. 2,000 flies tied. A Ultra Platinum (not many around as yet, but in a way a sign of things to come if one has followed the historic progression of the past decade) is rated to provide hackle for approx. 3,5000(!) flies tied. The mind boggles…
I guess that may indicate we could possibly see the arrival of 1/8 or 1/16 saddles?
I know my count is accurate, but if you take 10 flies per hackle (they will do that in size 18s and 20s)I think that Mr. Whitings estimates are pretty low. The 1/4 saddle we split was a bronze.
Two shops have told me that the platinum grades are almost all going to Japan. When the wife and I were fishing the San Juan last fall there was a group of 10 from Japan there. A guide showed me some of their midge patterns, works of art and a 24 was a big one. I realize that grade doesn’t neccessarily correlate to hackle size, however the 24s and smaller are a pretty small percent of any cape or saddle so it makes sense that the more feathers per cape/saddle the more small feathers.
