Partridge Skin from cabelas

[evw659]

My brother bought me a hungarian partridge skin for christmas from Cabelas. I opened it and immediately noticed that it was very poor quality. i tied a couple soft hackles and noticed that the hackle barbules would break with ease, the stems on the hackle would snap very easily, and half of the barbules were broken halfway up from the stem to begin with. $27.00 and it is worthless!

Anybody else have this problem?

 

[tobewan77]

not with them specifically, but i would say to never order bird skins/necks online unless you know/can speak to the person processing your order. The natural materials vary so much it's just generally a bad idea.

Again, the exception is if you can actually speak to someone that will pick and package your materials for you.

EDIT: Since it is from Cabelas, call. They should do right by you.

 

[Treeguy]

Yup online ordering of feathers can be crap...i have gotten lots of junk from bass pro and cableas in the feather dept. Sometimes i order stuff like marabou and think its just marabou..wrong..sometimes the quality is so poor i don't even want to tie with it..its a shot in the dark online ordering.

That is the main reason a fly shop is best..feel them..check them out first. Maybe a few bucks more but well worth it.

 

[bam]

Call or take it with and tell them about it. They'll make it right through a refund, credit or exchange.

 

[JeffK]

I always like to look at necks before I buy - and that goes double for game bird necks where the condition of the bird can be all over the place. By comparison, the modern breeders of chickens can control the consistency of the birds much better than an wild bird and there is less rish of getting an off neck. I have more dry fly necks than I will use in my life, but if needed a rooster or hen neck I won't feel bad about getting a Collins or Metz neck sight unseen. However, it seems particularly hard to find a good partridge skin since there are issues of sex, age of bird, condition of bird, season harvested etc that can only be evaluated by seeing the skin.

 

[evw659]

My brother called cabelas and they gave him a refund. Ill be ordering one from Penns creek angler where i know ill receive a good quality skin. hopefully i can get some flies tied with it before the grannoms!