How to cure/prevent brittle hackle stem?

All about flies Fly Tying
1

Hello,

Could you share your tips about how to cure stiff/brittle hackle stem and prevent chicken feathers from drying out?

I purchased Whiting Grizzly and Brown Capes (Silver Grade) and Whiting Grizzly Saddle 100 Packs in Spring 2003, and have stored them in their orginal packages.

My grizzly cape and saddle do not cause any problem.

However, when I tie Hackle Stacker (or Paraloop) patterns and wrap brown hackles around monofilament post parachute-style, the hackle stem from brown cape tends to break or crack.

Could you give your tips to solve this problem of stiff/brittle hackle stem?

In addition, how do you store/maintain your capes such that hackle stem remains pliable and chicken feathers do not dry out?

I appreciate your comments.

2

Sometimes we find steam or soaking to be useful when doing bugs with hackle stem or piccary bristle bodies. Ain’t no barbles on’em though…?
…lee s.

3

When tying hackle stackers you just have to be gentle, Especially when using neck hackle which has thicker stems. You’re trying to make very tight turns around small monofilament and even a great stem can break sometimes. Saddle feathers will break much less frequently, but I find that palmering the first few wraps up the “post” so the initial bends are less extreme really helps. Also, try not to pull too hard. You have to remember that as you pull the hackle your mono post is going to twist putting further stress on the stem. Pull it just tight enought to be secure.

The hackle for these flies does not have to be super tight. When you pull the post down and tie it off behind the eye you are really locking the hackle in since you’re trapping half of the stem between the mono and the thorax. I’ve had a few hackles break on me on the last wrap but they didn’t unravel. I’ve gone ahead and finished the fly without even tying the hackle off. I’ve fished these flies myself with no problems. One of the great things about this pattern is its incredible durability.

Jeremy

4

Jeremy,
You can soak the necks in glycerin, found in your local pharmacy. Soak for a few hours in a water base let dry overnight in a paper towel this will soften up the stems for wrapping on the parachutes post.I leave my stripped quills in this solution in a glass container for the year.

Wes.

5

adso4,

You ask:

1)"Could you give your tips to solve this problem of stiff/brittle hackle stem?

2)In addition, how do you store/maintain your capes such that hackle stem remains pliable and chicken feathers do not dry out?"

For #1, I’m not sure that the cure is worse than the result. If you soak the feather in a softener it might alleviate some of the brittleness but it will also weaken(soften) the barbs. Although, on parachute flies this may not be too bad. Stiff and brittle feather stems on reasonably new necks and saddles are, IMHO, the result of the breeding process and not of the storage environment.

  1. Just store in the zip lock bag. I haven’t had any problem with any of my neck or saddle feathers becoming brittle and they are stored in their bags or simply laying in my cabinet drawer. Many of these necks/saddles are over 25 years old.

Allan

6

As I said in my first post, I don’t think the poster’s problem is his hackle stems. It just can be difficult to bend ANY stem around a piece of 7x tippet 10 or 11 times without breaking it. If you’re having trouble breaking the stems on regular parachutes or a conventional collar hackle then that is a different matter. If it’s just the hackle stacker though, and just the neck hackle then the problem is probably not the stem. It just takes a more gentle touch. Especially with the thicker stems you get on necks.

Jeremy

7

Dear all,

Thanks for all your great input. FAOL really helped me out again as always.

Actually, JeremyH is right. My brown hackles have no problem when I use them for regular parachutes or humpies. Only when I tied hackle stackers requiring hackle wraps around the very thin monofilament post did brown neck hackles, but not grizzly ones, become a problem.

However, I appreciate your comments on the general problems of brittle hackle stem and dried-out feathers. Since some of us may encounter those once in a while but regular fly tying books do not always address those practical problems, I find your suggestions are quite useful.

More input from others will be also greatly appreciated. Please, don’t be shy to share your ideas.

Have a good day.

[This message has been edited by adso4 (edited 26 February 2006).]

8

Jeremy, just a question but what are you wrapping that needs 10 or 11 turns of hackle… just curious… or do you like excessively heavily hackled flies?

9

mantis,

This is the Hackle Stacker that JeremyH and I were referring to:

[url=http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/fotw2/060704fotw.html:9073c]http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/fotw2/060704fotw.html[/url:9073c]

10

Mantis, adso4 already pointed you to the fly, but the main reason for so many turns is that you have to go both up and down the mono and you have to wrap it as tall as your thorax is long, if that makes sense. You should understand after you look at the tutorial. Tie one up. It’s a killer pattern!

Jeremy

11

adso,

Not questioning the effectiveness of that pattern. However, I noticed two things about it from the tutorial:

  1. The tail, although stating it should be ‘shank length’, looks closer to hook length.

Maybe I missed something but what is the purpose of the loop versus a single strand of say 3x or 4x mono? For that matter, what is the advantage(s) of this method versus a heavily hackle thorax with the bottom barbs pulled up, trimmed and then dubbing applied?

  1. Looks like a comparadun tied with hackle instead of hair. Oh, and without split tails.

Just some observations.

Allan

12

Allan,

I tie these a lot and they’re one of my most effective patterns. As I said though I don’t tie them exactly like the tutorial. I tie them as emergers rather than duns. I think I still have your address, I’ll send you a few. The purpose of the loop is mainly to make the thing easier to tie. You stick your finger in there to hold the thing up. A single strand would be hard to grip and wrap the hackle.

Although the fly does look sort of like a comparadun in the photo in person it’s nothing like one. The advantage is that the hackle moves out from the body all along the thorax just like the natural instead of radiating out from a single point like a parachute, or having just one thin fan like a comparadun. The fly makes a very realistic footprint.

Jeremy

13

Allan,

As JeremyH explained it, the monofilament loop makes it easier to tie the pattern without any other tool than your finger.

In fact, the late Ned Long tied a similar pattern, using what he called the pull-over technique. He used stretchy single-strand floss instead of the loop, but he had to use a gallows tool in order to hold the post tight while wrapping hackles around it.

You also suggested that Comparadun or modified Thorax Dun may achieve the same effect, so Hackle Stacker might be redundant.

If you take a look at Ian Moutter’s <Tying Flies the Paraloop Way>, you can realize that Hackle Stacker or Paraloop flies can achieve certain effects that Comparadun, Parachute, or Thorax Dun cannot.

For example, instead of tightly tying down the hackled post at the eye of the hook, you can tie it very loosely to make it form an arc over the thorax area, leaving some space between it and the thorax. Then, the profile of the pattern in the surface film will be different.

Here below are some examples from Hans Weilenmann’s website of what I am talking about. As you may notice it from the photos, Hackle Stacker floats in the surface film, tilting upward at an angle by you forming an arc and leaving some space between the hackled monofilament post and the dubbed thorax. If you leave no space and tie the post down tight, then, it will float horizontally in the surface film.

In addition to the profile in the surface film, you can achieve more realistc footprint as JeremyH mentioned. Ian Moutter’s book shows a photo of the footprint of Paraloop flies when viewed from trout’s perspective.

You might still say that Comparadun, Parachute, or Thorax Dun can achieve a similar profile in the water. But, I would say that even for that case, Hackle Stacker makes things easier in more systemic ways although I think Hackle Stacker is unique.

Try it, and you will like it.

[This message has been edited by adso4 (edited 27 February 2006).]