Partridge Hackle

[Flydog]

Is there any advantage of purchasing full skin partridge vs. the individual packs? Are they the same feathers? I am only tying 14-18 soft hackle files. Also suggestions on color?

 

[flyfishermanj]

I found the full skins to be the way to go, better feathers, more uniform. The packs always seem to remind me of someone's leftovers and have less quality feathers.

JH

 

[GreenWeenie]

I second the above unless you can find a fly shop that sells individual packages that they put together from a good quality cape. The factory packaged feathers are for the most part webby, extremely small or large and basically useless. The cape will give you a much greater size range of usefull feathers.

 

[GreenWeenie]

I have a natural and dyed brown cape. If I could only keep one, I'd keep the natural.

 

[MKern]

If you buy a pack, be picky. Don't just buy the first one on the rack -- scan them all.
Bagged partridge is worse in quality than in years past, so I do know that some fly shops add more in to try and compensate.

 

[afishinado]

I find a partridge skin one of the most useful things I use for fly tying, along with a hare’s mask. The partridge feathers on the skin contain many shapes, colors and sizes of soft, webby feathers, and can be used for any number of wet and nymph patterns. It is not always necessary to follow the material listing of patterns exactly. For instance, partridge feathers can be substituted when a pattern calls for a wood duck tail. Just find the feather that matches the color closely. A partridge skin costs a few bucks, but it’s well worth the investment, and the skin can be used to tie many nymphs and wets for years to come.

You can buy smaller packs of other things, but in the long run, it’s more expensive. Here is a list of materials I believe are well worth stocking in bulk:

Hungarian Partridge Skin

Hares Mask – great amount of colors for dubbing rough nymphs with guard hairs. A $5 hares mask equals 10 $3 packs of nymph dubbing you buy, which are mostly cheap, dyed rabbit fur without the guard hairs needed to make your nymphs look gnarly. Also don't be a sucker and buy a pack of dubbing in every shade of color known to man. Buy some basic colors and blend them by hand or with a cheap coffee bean grinder to get the color you need. The same with tying thread - white thread + colored Sharpie = great savings.

Peacock Sword

Pheasant Tail

Marabou

CDC feathers - at least for me

Black saddle neck – for buggers

Dry fly necks in Brown, Med. Dun, Cream – a full or half neck of each is best, and Whiting/Hoffman capes are the bomb. The Whiting bronze grade is good enough, better than most of the other top grades. The capes have all the sizes you need, and you can buy 100 packs to supplement the sizes you use most when you run out. You can buy 100 packs in other colors when needed, but don’t forget, it’s a lot more expensive that way, especially if you tie flies in a lot different of sizes.

I’m sure there’s more others can add. Good luck.

 

[tabasco_joe]

I also find that the packs don't always have a full range of size or color that you get with a full skin.

 

[sandfly]

Im trying to raise some imatation partridge...so far so good...birds have good color...need to get incubater this winter to hatch eggs....

Other wise whole skins are best...

 

[Fishidiot]

I'll second the votes for the whole skin. A Hungarian Partridge cape provides the best soft hackles for wet flies and nymphs bar none. A couple times I've been tempted to try out hunting on club land stocked with these birds just so I could get the skins. Bags of patridge feathers I have purchased have been very poor quality.

 

[MKern]

I would like to add that certain companies are no longer carrying the loose-bagged feathers, rather strung hackle.
This stuff is way more expensive because of the silk material used to hold the feathers in place. Plus you only get like 24 feathers for roughly the same price as about 1/10 oz. of the bagged.

 

[shakey]

go for the full skin if you can.befriend a wingshooter.