I am a beginning fly tyer and i am in the market for some hackle…i have looked at bass pro shop, cabela’s, hook & hackle, j. Stockard, and others, but all i think i have managed to do is confuse myself…
My wife is not in high support of my hobby so i have to operate it on a low budget and under the radar…i am interested in tying dry flys in sizes ranging from 10 to 20’s…can anyone here help me in determining what i should get.
raiderhunter
give Denny a call, he is the owner of Conranch Hackle a sponcor on the sight and he can help you get what your looking for and not a a high price, so check it out.
Ghost
I remember the first advice I heard on hackle, from a older gentleman who is consider the godfather of Georgia trout fishing was “Buy the best quality hackle you can afford.” He also said “You are trying to make the fly look like something the fish eat, not someone else’s fly.”
For that range of sizes you will need to buy a Neck or necks. If you want more than one color try to find a supplier who will sell you two half necks for one price. You do not need the top grade of neck but will need hackle raised for fly tying to get down to a size twenty. A suggestion for keeping the cost down is to plan on some substitution of colors. A dark ginger or light brown neck will do for both brown and ginger as called for in patterns. I have often used grizzly hackle instead of dun and it is much more versatile overall. I would start by looking at the patterns I intended to tie. Decide what hackle is needed right now and what can wait until later. If some colors will only be used in limited sizes consider saddles or half saddles. If you want to make a show of trying to be frugal buy a rooster from a local farmer and have chicken soup. The feathers will be good for streamers and wet flys. Usable dry fly hackle in the larger sizes is available from fighting cocks. Caution should be exercised in contacting those breeders. They can be violent men but they will sell a bird if approached properly.
If you’re tying in that wide of a range, you’ll probably want capes, where even in the low end “tyer’s grade” you can get some down to #20, maybe 22, although the bulk will be in the larger sizes. Most of the saddles today provide hackle in a limited range, size 12-16 for the ones I have. Check out Jim Slattery’s site www.jimsflyco.com ; he’s got a wide range of hackle, capes and saddles at good prices. Also, Charlie Collins http://www.collinshacklefarm.com has some great hackle at good prices and when you buy the cape, he includes the saddle (his saddles are not as good as Whiting, but for a lot of the foam bodied flies I tie, they work great and he has an excellent color selection).
Regards,
Scott
Hi Raiderhunter,
Based on what you wrote in your section on flies, you want several sizes of hackle.
A basic primer on the hackle you see listed on line and in catalogs is as follows:
Hackle can be broken into two types, dry fly hackle and wet fly hackle. The dry fly hackle is for tying dries, the barbs are stiff, and have no webbing. Wet fly hackle has soft very flexible barbules and is very webby. When treated with floatant, dry fly hackle floats dry flies. Wet fly hackle has lots of movement, soaks up water quickly, and is prefect for wet flies, buggers, nymph legs, flies like the partridge and orange, etc.
Dry fly hackle is available as capes (also called necks) or saddles. Capes are from the neck of the rooster chicken, have a wide range of feather sizes, and thicker stems than do saddles. Saddles have finer stems than do the capes, but have much longer feathers, and typically each saddle has a narrow range of feather sizes, often almost all of the feathers are in 2 or 3 fly sizes.
We are talking genetic hackle here, which is hackle from roosters that have been specifically bred for fly tying feathers for 50 to 100 years. Typical barnyard chickens do not have feathers nearly so good for fly tying. Barnyard chicken feathers, when compared to genetic hackle, will have short tapered feathers which are webby, only present in sizes for relatively large flies, will be webby, and have a short “sweet spot” on the feather. All of the “name brand” hackle folks that are specifically in the hackle business have genetic hackle.
Capes are available to some extent in 1/2 capes, and there are lower grades that used to be priced from aroung $20 or so.
You will sometimes see “hackle capes” on Ebay that are obviously from barnyard chickens. Not a good choice for dry fly hackle.
You will see “strung hackle” for low prices. This is very large soft webby hackle that is primarily wet fly and bugger type hackle. It is not suitable for dry flies, at least none that I have seen is.
I have sent you a private correspondance.
Regards,
Gandolf
Do you have a local flyshop in the area that you can visit? As a beginner you should visit a local flyshop and ask the owner to SHOW YOU what to look for in a hackle. Yes, the breeders listed here sell a quality product and I’m sure you’ll get a good hackle from any of them (my personal recommendation would be Collins as I’ve bought more than a few necks from him but I’m sure the others are good too) but you should understand what it is you’re buying. As you can see prices for hackle aren’t cheap. Even with a cape unless you’re buying a top-level grade it’s going to be tough to get that range of feathers in one cape - another reason to actually LOOK at a cape before you buy as there are differences between individual capes. In fact sometimes you’ll find a bargain depending on how the individual graded a particular cape.
If you’re sticking with a name breeder like one of those listed here, I personally would buy based on price. I honestly don’t see the benefit of spending $60 for a cape when I can get the same quality for $30. I’m sure there are some who will argue that you can get x amount more flies out of the $60 cape and perhaps that’s true but as I’m not a production tyer I just don’t see that as a big enough benefit to pay upwards of double the price. And most breeders will tell you that the difference in grade does NOT mean a difference in quality - it only means that the higher grade capes will tie more flies in a given size range.
And don’t go crazy buying tons of different colors. I made that mistake. Grizzly, Brown, Med-to-dark dun and medium to light ginger and you’re set for MANY MANY patterns.
Just my .02 worth.
Here’s the best deal for getting started. The Metz mutli-packs. each size range cointains 3 different colors pieces.
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/pod/horizontal-pod.jsp?id=0011691&navCount=1&parentId=cat20542&masterpathid=&navAction=push&cmCat=MainCatcat20431-cat20542_TGP&parentType=index&indexId=cat20542&rid=
Mini packs $5.99
http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_10201690_175004008_175000000_175004000_175-4-8
http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_10201688_175004008_175000000_175004000_175-4-8
1/2 saddles $19.99
http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_10205244_175004008_175000000_175004000_175-4-8
1/2 capes $19.99
http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_10205242_175004008_175000000_175004000_175-4-8
I’d be very cautious about ordering those mini-packs by mail order. I bought several at my local store and size grading is all over the place. One of the micro/midge packs was mostly size 12, 14 if you were feeling generous. One those, you really need to open up the pack, take out the hackle, and look at it before you buy it. For buying mail order, I’m much more impressed with the Metz packs that are sold by Cabellas: http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/pod/horizontal-pod.jsp?_DARGS=/cabelas/en/common/catalog/pod-link.jsp_A&_DAV=MainCatcat20431-cat20542_TGP&rid=&indexId=cat20542&navAction=push&masterpathid=&navCount=1&parentType=index&parentId=cat20542&id=0011691
Remember that smaller hackle packs are more likely to contain oversized hackle than the larger ones are to contain undersized hackle. Also remember that you will need something for tailing material. The feather in both types of hackle packs (Cabellas and BassPro) aren’t very good in this regard as the fibers on the feathers aren’t long enough.
Hackle is one of those things in which being cheap might not be frugal.
Regards,
Ed
Raiderhunter,
I feel that you have gotten great advise from Gandolf, so I will not repeat what he has already said. As far as what to buy, you might want to look into the “Whiting Introductory Dry Fly Hackle Pack”. It comes with four half capes (grizzly, brown, ginger, and med. dun) for around $60.00. These colors will cover alot of patterns, and the Whiting hackle is always very nice. There are many options for hackle on the market, but this is hard to beat for the money. There is a online retailer that has this pack in their catalog. They always have free shipping and I believe they have a online coupon for 10% off through June. Shoot me a PM if you want there address.
Good luck, Tony
You might also look into the Whiting 100’s packs of saddle hackle. For around $15 to $18 you can buy a 100’s pack in the size you want. You can tie a lot of flies with one of those packs. A size # 16 or #14 in a Grizzly as well as the same sizes in a Brown will tie most of the flies you would want to start with, then graduate to a med. Dun color in the same sizes.
Most of the mail-order that you mentioned carry these, and they seem to run true to size. Good luck.
Kelly
Good advice for getting some hackle at the lowest price possible, but can I make a suggestion.
Have you thought about tying Comparaduns and/or Sparkle Duns? They’re dry flies, but comparadun hair is much cheaper than hackle. You get some dries but stay under the radar.
Just a suggestion to get two out of the three. That ain’t bad…
I agree that buying good quality hackle is a sound investment, but also remember that a higher costs isn’t neccessarily better quality. Whilting says that the feathers in their Bronze grade are just as good as their Silver grade , but it is the quantity of feathers that makes the difference. In other words for a beginning tier who needs to fill his collections with a Grizzly, furnance, black, dun etc there is no need to buy the big dollar capes. Buy Bronze grade stuff in a couple of basic colors and be happy. No one said it has to be a race either. If you have no hackle buy a grizzly and a brown or furnace cape and be happy for a while. More than I could ever say in a couple of paragraphs, but this is a grand audio program that will help in your education of feathers: http://www.askaboutflyfishing.com/speakers/thomas/thomas.cfm From Dr. Thomas Whiting himself. Yes there are other companies out there, I do hear good things about Conrach and Denny is a sponsor here. The audio program will help you understand things better no matter who you buy from.
I started fly tying again after a 35 year hiatus, something to do with working between college and retirement, and I began with substandard hackle. I am glad I used the substandard stuff when I re-learned the art because I tied a lot of real dogs. You know, the stuff you might one day give the local kids for sunnies. I’ve since gotten my tying skill up to speed and because I fish with what I tie one thing is absolute, you MUST use good quality hackle when tying dry flies!. Any old webby hackle can be used for wets and buggers and the like but when you are tying flies that need to float DO NOT SKIMP on the quality of the hackle!