Cree Hackle

[RCFetter]

This is a 3 yr old article from Fly Rod and Reel. I thought it was interesting. At the Somerset Show I was looking at cree necks at the Collins Hackle booth.

I'm not sure what it's used for other than an Adams Dry.

The Quest For Cree

Some excerpts from the article

* Cree is the holy grail of hackles. This is not just due to its rarity, but to its remarkable beauty

* Cree is not a breed of bird; it’s a tricolored hackle, with red and black on a white ground.

* At Whiting Farms, crees are descended from a line of birds acquired from Ted Hebert.

* Whiting Farms produces several hundred good cree roosters a year, but the public rarely sees them. Though they try to allocate them fairly among all fly shops, the shipments rarely make it to the peg wall.

* The best cree pelts will have distinct and somewhat equal red, black and white tints. Rather than appearing like distinct bars, the colors often appear splashed along the hackle.

 

[MKern]

Cool info, but probably not a magic hackle.
Ginger dyed grizzly would work just the same, imo.

 

[blueheron]

Charlie Collins has great cree variants. I have several different colors and use them in place of a one color hackle, say ginger, just to get a different look. Not essential but little is in fly tying.

 

[RCFetter]

Here's a pic from Collins' web site:

 

[fisherboy3]

Honestly, you can use them for anything that calls for a brown hackle. It just will give a little different look such as the barring. I tied a bunch of early season mayflies with cree. Such as hendricksons, quill gordons and blue quills. Im sure they will work fine. I got my cree online, its a beaut until the dog got a little bit of it.

 

[NJTroutbum]

Probably the most usable hackle for both dry and nymph uses.

 

[fisherboy3]

This is the Cree neck I have. Dog attack top left. But still very usable.

 

[dryflyguy]

They're nice.
And I had one once, that I used for green drakes and gray fox.
However, I wouldn't pay a lot of money to get one. You can get the same effect by mixing ginger and grizzly hackles

 

[just_jon]

I use a ginger colored cree along with cream hackle on my catskill style sulfurs. Pattern has served me well for more than 40 years.

 

[sandfly]

sorry to say that is a grizzly with some brown, wouldn't even call it a variant. I have raised birds all my life and this is a true cree neck. true cree is worth more that what whiting charges. the Collins is very close

 

[fisherboy3]

What exactly does a true cree neck look like? Are the brown black and white all similar in barring size?

 

[fisherboy3]

Sandfly,
If you zoom in on it every feather has all three barrings. Yours seems to have more brown than anything. Does a cree matter if one color has more than another, or does all three still count as a true cree?

 

[sandfly]

it should have black, white, brown with maybe some ginger. if you look at yours 90% is only black/white, I see no brown in the feather. look up conranch hackle denny devoted years in trying to breed a true cree. 99% of cree out there is only a variant grizzly being called cree to sell it. this is my only cree I have left and I'll never use it.

 

[sandfly]

read this by denny conrad
http://flyanglersonline.com/flytying/cree.php

 

[fisherboy3]

I guess its just a bad pic. When seen in person it has all three. Trust me, I wouldnt have bought it if it was just grizzly. And if I were you, I wouldnt use your neck either. Nice colors on it

 

[sandfly]

this is a variant saddle, look familiar. lots of whitish hackle.

 

[fisherboy3]

I think you misunderstood when i meant it had all three colors. you can see them here.

 

[fisherboy3]

Ever come across a cree saddle?

 

[sandfly]

yes a few over the years. you have to understand that real cree is rare. most people and company's have jumped on the bandwagon claiming cree which are really just varients because of the draw and money made. getting a real cree is something like 100,000 to 1 in getting one.

 

[PALongbow]

I bought a half Whiting Cree a few years ago at TCO Fly Shop. I use it primarily for my March Brown hackle.

Ron