So I got the itch to buy another cape, I currently have black, cream, brown, ginger, medium dun. Besides those colors what should be my next color purchase. I really like some of the olive grizzly capes I see. Any suggestions on a commonly used cape that I’m missing in my collection?
Edit… I have a natural grizzly as well
Peruse these colors from Campfire Lodge
http://www.campfirelodgewestyellowstone.com/Cart-Brands.aspx?d=1&b=1
Regular grizzly is useful for a lot of patterns; by itself or mixed (olive grizz is nice; got one for green drakes (western)/flavs). Badger’s kinda handy, too, either silver or golden.
Regards,
Scott
Natural grizzly seems to be the glaring omission from your list. If you are only getting one cape (or saddle) get the natural, 90% of the grizzle I use are natural, the rest I just colour with a permanent marker (before tying).
Cheers,
A.
Agree with those above posts that suggested ‘natural grizzly’.
Oh sorry yes I’ve got a natural grizzly cape as well
I never thought about coloring the hackle… Good idea
Since you do have a grizzly you might want to look at a barred ginger cape. I bought one about a year ago and have used it a lot more than I thought I would.
Joe
Oh! Well, in that case, I’d go with a barred dark ginger or a light dun.
get a Cree
You don’t really need any more, but light dun or light ginger are useful. I’d start on getting some saddles myself…
I agree with Whatfly. For dry flies, I find saddles to be the best. As others have pointed out, the CDL feathers make great tails.
With saddles, you get nearly the whole feather as the “sweet spot”.
I started tying when we used “India Necks”. It usually took two feathers to hackle a single fly. We are lucky to have Whiting Farms. If we only had small breeders, the costs would be much higher. I’m pretty sure that, allowing for inflation, today’s unit cost of hackle/fly is much cheaper than it was many years ago when premium hackle was Metz or Hebert. Not to mention you don’t get the “rolling stems” we used to have to deal with.
A light dun saddle has a lot of uses in tying.
Badger and a very reddish brown often are useful.
Regards,
Ed
Second the cree
If you want to colour a hackle with a marker pen get a piece of card or plastic (the flat part of a blister pack is ideal). Put the feather on the card or plastic and trap it close to the cuticle with the pen then pull from the cuticle. Repeat if necessary.
Cheers,
A.
I’ve been using more dyed grizzly lately, olives, pale yellows, as well as natural barred gingers.
Gene
Great ideas. Still undecided… Saddles are a good idea too, I bought a 100 pack once and they are nice to tie with. The wheels are kind of turning with maybe trying to dye some feathers from the grizzly or cream cape, I hardly ever use the cream cape
I would add Grizzly and Silver Badger. Cree is VERY useful, but you can combine Griz/Brown until you find the perfect hackle at the perfect price since they carry a premium. I also have a Golden badger and Furnace that I use quite a bit. I agree that dyed griz are very nice hackles. Just be careful when buying. I have a dyed olive giz that I “needed”…for one pattern. It gets used during 2 weeks of the season.not the smartest investment. LOL
Third the cree…also olive since I do a lot of stillwater
Ducksterman hit on a good point. We are all thinking trout patterns. But throw in warm water, and all bets are off. You never have enough colors. 