A General Hackle Question

[osprey]

If a bunch of fly tyers organize a buy and do it in bulk you can get a pretty good break on the price , a fellow from Portage who is now out west somewhere used to do that once in awhile , he'd get the orders and the money off of a bunch of us and buy like 50 necks at a time (we knew we could trust him to get what we wanted,application wise) was never dissapointed , but i'll never mail order hackle again , don't get me wrong i mail order other materials and hooks etc. but hackle is too important and expensive to not look at up close and personal.

 

[StreamBottom]

sort of off topic, but does age matter? (in regards to hackle)
I have some 10+ year old necks, I'm never sure if it's me or the necks.
thanks

 

[dryflyguy]

Yes, the hackle stems get more brittle with age. Making it easier to break them off.
That said, I have a brown neck that's about 25 years old. And I still use some of it's larger hackles for march browns. Just have to wind it very gingerly

 

[dano]

osprey wrote:
....but i'll never mail order hackle again , don't get me wrong i mail order other materials and hooks etc. but hackle is too important and expensive to not look at up close and personal.

I hear ya.
I thought I was safe ordering a couple of Whiting 100 packs.
Both packs were supposed to be 16's and were labeled as 16's but they were dead on 14's.

 

[flipnfly]

i know when i need hackle i just go to the back of my closet cause my cat loves my hackle drawer i had to put a child lock on it because he was opening it but still some how manages to steal a hock every so often

 

[Chetty82]

Now I have a few brown saddle hackles still are they alright for dry flies.

 

[Chetty82]

A buddy of mine has some roosters about 5 of them. I told him that if any of them keel over I want the feathers right below the neck. Is it good to use just like that or is there some sort of treatment process that it needs to go through before using.

 

[bigjohn58]

I'm not sure if those roosters will have the same quality of feathers as what you can buy. I know hackle companies hybred chickens/roosters to get quality dry fly feathers.

 

[gfen]

Skin 'em, salt the skins and hang them to dry.

They won't be as good as a "real" tying neck, but it'll be good enough to tie with.