When I started fly tying around 1979, it was possible to buy imported dry fly necks for about $10. Now of course they were not as good as genetic hackle and probably not as cost-effective in the long run, but they were still useable. When you needed a hackle color that you didn’t expect to use a lot of, it was a good way to go. I’m having trouble finding these kinds of necks nowadays. Back then, I use to get them from Hook and Hackle and even Orvis, although the ones I got from Orvis usually were pretty poor. I don’t expect them to cost $10 anymore, but $15 - $20 would be nice. What happened to these necks?
A quick search on Ebay pulled these up:
To answer your question, they’re still out there, you just have to do a little looking.
Regards,
Scott
Thanks for those links. I meant to mention that while I have found a few sources, I am not finding the range of color choices that I have had in the past. For example, I happen to be looking for Dark Dun right now.
With the demand down because everyone’s using genetic, there’s little incentive for the imports to breed harder to get colors. If you really need an Indian neck in dark dun you could always dye it yourself.
Regards,
Scott
H5 N1 is partly to blame. These days I tie a lot of salmon flies, so use Chinese cock necks in all the colours of the rainbow. I’ve noticed a huge drop off in supply, and a corresponding increase in price. Which is quite alarming when you see bald patches appear in your capes as fast as I do. You may end with something like Whitings 100s if the hairdressers haven’t got them all. (Just a thought, could we spread a rumor amongst hairstylists that you can catch bird flu from getting feathers in your hair?)
Sorry I can’t be any more help.
Cheers,
C.
Indian cock skins are still reasonably available here in the UK. There are some wet fly patterns
that use cock hackles for which they are ideal.
Is it true that psittacosis can be transmitted by really good quality dry fly hackles.:lol:
Back in the early 1970’s, I was one of 2 authorized importers of these necks that I know of in the eastern US. The other one was Raymond Rumpf, who is still in business as a wholesaler of fly tying materials. I do not know if he is still an authorized importer, but as Scott and others have already pointed out there is still a supply of these necks available in the market.
Back then, we could speciify the grade, colors and quantities when we placed orders with our foreign suppliers, and we generally got what we ordered when our shipments arrived. (Sometimes we’d order the top quality and gets seconds, but not too often.) I sold my best natural dun necks for $10 each, and most others for $2.00 - $4.00 per neck.
In 1972, Buck Metz began raising chickens primarily for feathers on his farm in the Kishacoquillas Valley near Belleville, PA, and in 1973 contracted with Orvis to sell his entire production of his genetically bred birds. These Metz feathers were so far superior to those imported from India, China and elsewhere, that my interests in continuing to import these feathers soon declined. In a matter of a few years, Metz was raising and selling something like 120,000 of these chickens for their feathers, about half of the world’s total demand.
During this the same time frame, Henry Hoffman in Oregon began breeding chickens specifically for their feathers for fly tying, and although done on a much smaller scale than Metz (his largest flock was reportedly about 3,500 birds) he was very successful, particularly for his grizzly hackle. In about 1989 Hoffman sold his business to Tom Whiting of Colorado, who was just completing his Phd in poultry genetics and husbandry. Whiting subsequently acquired the Hebert genetic line in 1997, and soon overtook Metz and became the worlds largest producer of these genetic hackles.
This is kind of a long winded answer to your question “What happened to these (imported dry fly) necks?” You only have to look at the vastly superior quality of the necks produced by Metz, Hoffman, Whiting and others to understand.
I still have a small quantity of these imported dun necks that I’ve kept all these years. Frankly though, if you’d lay them beside some of today’s genetic necks I think you’d see you’d be a lot better off to buy a half neck, or some Whiting 100’s, for example, than you would to pay even $10.00 for one of these imported ones.
John
No. One isn’t likely to get avian flu from feathers. Harboring (or harbouring, if you prefer) bird lice it a different story. If you were a fashion foward female, would you want some wee little, 8-legged friends hitching a ride on your way-cool-totally-rad-<insert current phrase I’ll never hear> fashion accessory? But there are none in the package, you say. True enough, but wear them outside and who knows what can waft down when a flock of starlings flies over. (Some of you will be thinking of other things, about now, but those plummet, not waft.)
Regards,
Ed
P.S. Is “wee” a proper adverb in Scotland, or only an adjective? “wee little bug” vs. “wee, little bug”
I realize there is no chance at all, but it might make saddles available again if we spread the rumor.
Cheers,
C.
John,
The Whiting 100’s do seem like my best option at this point. I have pity on anyone just getting into fly tying that has to spend $30 - $60 per neck to build up a collection of hackle. It’s no wonder the newbies are all about foam and beads. Kind of a shame that the sport has evolved into $60 chicken feathers and $60 fly lines.
They’ll just wait for us to croak and hope our wives unload all of our tying stuff without knowing what it’s worth.
Regards,
Scott
Wee is an adjective meaning small or little, there is a name for doubling up two adjectives meaning the same,
can’t remember what, but it is strictly ‘verboten’.
You mean you can’t even take a little “wee wee”?
What I fear is that my wife will sell stuff for what I told her I paid for them… 
Seriously, and about hackle (so it is SOMEWHAT related to the original post), where does one find saddles these days? Or is it a lost cause? I know of the crazy beauty craze, but there has to be some saddles out there, somewhere, I’d hope.
Just curious,
ZugbugPete
The few saddles I’ve seen are still ridiculously overpriced (e.g. $100 for a Whiting half-saddle). The good news is capes are coming back into stock. Going rate seems to be $60 for a Whiting Bronze, but considering how many flies you can tie from one, that is not too unreasonable.
And with regards to the OP, $10 in 1979 is about $30 in today’s dollars, which is about the price of a half Whiting Bronze cape…
good one
You can get Whiting 100s on EBay for about $2-5.00 more than what they were going for before the fad hit. Probably a better buy right now than some of the saddles, which still are pretty expensive.
Regards,
Scott
I bought a Whiting 100 in a medium dun several years ago when I needed to tie a dozen #18 BWO thorax for a trip. It took one feather, leaving me with most of the pack. Unless you tie wulffs or other heavily hackled flies, you get more than a hundred flies out of the pack. The rest of this will last me until I die, and then some.