Notes from the podcast:

• Besides vise, maybe the largest single investment in tying
• Two ways to purchase hackle, from necks or saddles – some info help make right choice for you
• Terminology:
  • Necks and Capes are the same thing. They come from the back of the neck.  Imagine if a redneck rooster was wearing a long mullet hair style; that would be the cape. Also, imagine the mane of a horse.
  • Saddle, from the back of chicken, like where a saddle would be if you saw a low budget sci-fi movie with a GI-Joe riding the chicken.
• Necks and Saddles are graded to help us make purchasing decisions (and the merchant make pricing decisions)
  • When buying, you will find the hackle graded with terms like: 1,2,3, ABC, Gold, Silver, Bronze
  • Grade is based on the quantity, quality, and size of the feathers.
  • The best value is in higher quality (more flies per $)
    • The only question, will you actually tie enough flies to invest in a high grade saddle?
• Advantage Neck
  • Necks have a wider variety of sizes, from 10 to 24. Plus a lot of left overs after the dry flies are tied:
    • Large hackles on the side, called spade, which have good fibers for tails
    • Woolly bugger hackle on back
    • Streamer wings
    • Stripped quills for bodies
• Counter-point Saddles
  • Saddles have longer feathers – many more flies per feather, but in a narrow range (3 sizes)
    • Ask the fly shop to inspect the saddle. Tell them which sizes you want to tie (ie. 12-16), and ask for a saddle that matches.  Don’t pick a random saddle.
    • For these sizes, you get a lot more flies worth.

• Dick Talleur did a study of capes & saddles in his book, Trout Flies for the 21st Century.  He counted each feather, grading the sizes, and tied a bunch of flies to see what each could tie:
  • Cape yielded approx 600 flies, with 220 left over feathers (tailing, streamer wings etc.) with sizes 10 down to 28
  • Saddle yielded approximately 1600 flies sizes 12 to 18, majority in 14 & 16
• Some recent prices for silver grade hackle: $80 retail for cape, $65 for saddle. So, if your in the market to tie a bunch of flies in a smaller range, the saddle is the way to go on a $/fly perspective.
• Still this is quite an investment. Especially if you are starting out and want several colors
• You can break this investment up into smaller amounts:
  • half saddles or half necks (even quarter saddles).  Many fly shops have a “starter neck” which is half brown and half grizzly.
  • Single size “100-packs”, which are enough saddle feather to tie 100 of the advertised sized flies
• An additional note about hackle, there have been lots of improvements over the past 20 years – breeding science & genetics applied to raising the chickens
  • The stems are thinner, feathers are longer, barbs are stiffer, making it easier to float your fly.
  • As a result, if you are following recipes from years ago, they may call for 2 to 4 feathers, with today’s necks, one feather needed (and sometimes you get more than 1 fly per feather)

This one is tied with sporty girl foam, a red squirrel tail, bushier hackle, and rubber legs.

Good additions, the darker wing makes this pattern look more realistic, and the rubber legs add a lot of action.  The hackling job on wasn’t so hot, the rubber legs got in the way a bit, but after a few flies, I should have it down.

This one is back to deer hair for the wing, but from a darker deer.  I’m thinking I’ll keep the deer hair, to provide more flotation.

Here is the fly floating in a tub of water.  The wing is floating flush on the water’s surface. The curved body with black egg sac is meant to simulate an egg laying salmon fly. Not a bad look from this perspective. Definitely worth some field testing.