I presently do not have a way to measure hakle and relate it to my fly.Currently I am just tying all the hakle on the feather on and just trim it to look straight after words.I am going to make a hakle gage thing but dose any one have any answers on hakle length in proportion to hook size?
My tying instructor recommends 1 to 1.5 times the hook gap. Just for grins I measured the #12 slot on my hackle gage and then the gap on a #12 hook. His advice is just about right on. I just purchased a Gallows for tying spinners and took a lesson on it. That instructor said you don’t have to be quite so fussy with spinners.
I also tend to trim the bottom hackles so the fly floats a little lower and upright.
Cactus
You can buy a hackle gauge for a couple of bucks at any fly shop or through any online shop. You can find some in the sponsor section here. Triming the hackle is not a good idea, The hackle naturally comes to a point. Triming it ruins the effect.
Joe
okay, so how about palmering a wooley bugger. I really hate to waste hackle buy cutting one too long. Maybe it is common sense and I suppose I will learn by repetition. However…
There are two hackle guages on this Site. I do not know were they are but I am sure that JC or LF can help you out with them. Just print them out and have them laminated. It might cost you .50 to get that done. I have used both of them for many years and they work well. Ron
Superbob,
A hackle gauge isn’t really neccessary. Put your hook in the vise, and select a hackle feather. Bend the stem around the bottom of the hook shank, and the barbs should extend about 1/2 the hook gap past the point for most standard dries. I had nothing else to do, so I drew a quick sketch to illustrate hackle sizing and the effects achieved by different proportions. Hopefully this helps.
Sorry for the ghost images on that, I did it on the back of the OSU mechanical engineering curriculum flow chart 
[This message has been edited by OkieBass133 (edited 17 February 2005).]
Okie stole my suggestion. I have a Griffin gauge but often just bend the hackle around the hook to check the size.
Jay
The two hackle gages are located in the Fly of the week Archive. The are listed in the 4th Quarter, 2004 Tying The Catskill Style Light Cahill.
Mike
OkieBass133, scanning tip: to prevent the reverse side from ghosting through place a black piece of paper in back. Nice illustration by the way.
Gardenfish, You can hold a wrap or two on the wooly bugger, before tying it in, to visualize the finished fly. Similar to OkieBass133’s very good sketch.
Joe
Thanks JC I knew you would come through Ron
send me your address and I will mail you an extra hackle gauge that I have that will mount to your vise.
phish
Hmm just for clarification - are you asking how long the barbs should be or how long the entire feather should be.
Barbule length is relative to the hook gap, as illustrated in the pic a few posts up.
Feather length is a different animal, for instance a saddle hackle is very long and you can get several flies out of it, where as neck hackle is shorter and you usually only get one fly per feather.
Hopefully i explained that clear enough rather than just muddying the waters more.
You can also buy hackles for each size of hook. I use black and brown dry fly hackles for hook #10. The hackles come from Whiting farms Inc.
If you are using these, you’re out of the problem.