Different Marabou Types

[a23fish]

In pursuing tying up some of my "beginner" Wooly Bugger flies, I bought two types of marabou. One "Strung Marabou" (Wapsi MB089) and the other labelled as "Wooly Bugger Marabou" (Wapsi MW100). I'm not sure why it is labelled as WB marabou, I found it much inferior to the regular strung marabou, to the point I simply quit using it after 4 or 5 flies.

What is the reason for the difference and what should the WB marabou be used for? I hate to throw it away but at my beginner stage, I don't have much confidence in using it.

 

[sgrim]

What was it about the WB marabou that you didn't like? I generally don't see a lot of difference in marabou except some might be a little more or less fluffy. Sometimes badly died marabou seems a bit lifeless to me, but there's no type or brand that I deliberately avoid.

 

[Facemelted]

I wouldn't use strung marabou for much to be honest. The straight stiff fibers don't do it for me.

Blood feathers and the "Bugger Marabou" are superior IMO.

 

[a23fish]

What was it about the WB marabou that you didn't like? I generally don't see a lot of difference in marabou except some might be a little more or less fluffy. Sometimes badly died marabou seems a bit lifeless to me, but there's no type or brand that I deliberately avoid.

The WB marabou was much less dense and less fluffy than the strung marabou package contents. I had difficulty getting enough of the WB feather to get enough of what I think is a proper size tail for tying in. The strung marabou feathers were longer and had more volume, so even after pinching off the skinny tips and discarding much of the material near the base, there was still plenty left to tie a fluffy tail. But I'm a beginner; I still can't get over how much of the material ends up wasted. Or maybe I just don't know enough yet to understand where else it could be used.

 

[riverwhy]

I had the same thing happen to me when I decided to tie some white ones. I got the WB marabou at Bass Pro. When they got wet it looked like the tail was much smaller than ones I had tied in the past.

 

[falcon]

Blood Marabou used to have thinner stems. I have not bought it in quite awhile. I stocked up when Bob Clouser was selling material at a show 20 years ago. At some point I will need more or different colors.

 

[discomidge]

In my limited experience I've found that there's a ton of variability in marabou feathers, so a lot of it might just come down to the batch you happened to get. But my brother, a real streamer head out in MT, is all about marabou and he's convinced me that marabou quality matters. He's given me some "spey" marabou that makes my stock of strung blood quill stuff look pretty clumsy. As I understand it, "spey" marabou is like select blood quills. The spey feathers are longer with a substantial portion of them that's good for hackling and the really good feathers have really thin stems and long wispy tips to the barbules. The bugger bou that I have is quite different, particularly because the stems are real thick. It's outstanding for tails but it'd be hard to hackle pretty with it.

 

[lestrout]

The original 'real' maribou came from a kind of stork. Much of the commercial maribou is from turkey (domestic, at that) and chickens. For microstreamers, some tyers use the fluff from hackle feathers. There is a lot of variation in fluffiness, thickness, fiber morphology, etc. so take that into consideration.