Begginer With Question With Grizzly Hackle

[joe2011]

im trying this fly tying out and when a recipe calls for Hackle: Grizzly (palmered) can it be any grizzly saddle or cape? Does it matter?

[ness]

What you're looking for is the softer, webbier stuff to Palmer -- typically from a saddle. The most expensive capes/necks have stiffer-barbed, smaller feathers and are more for dry flies, but the lower, longer feathers can be used to Palmer or tie larger dry flies. Saddles will be without the dry fly hackles and mostly all suitable for Palmering, but you won't have any dry fly material should you want that.

[joe2011]

ok well the recipe that i was looking at is the Griffiths Gnat, isnt that a dry fly?

[ness]

Yep, it's a dry fly. Wasn't sure if you were talking about a wooly bugger-type wet fly or what. To float that you'd want a little stiffer/higher quality hackle. Do you have something, or are you looking to buy something for this fly? All hackle is getting harder to find, especially grizzly. A medium-quality neck should get you some good hackle for Palmering dries without breaking the bank. It would also have some feathers for smaller dries and some longer ones for wooly buggers and stuff.

[joe2011]

no i have none just trying to figure out what i need.

[Wayne SW/MO]

You want a rooster neck. The problem today with the Griffins is that quality necks are getting scarce and they require the smaller hackles, and there aren't many even on a number one neck.

[timsfly]

Charlie Reading at Bennett Springs has some grizzly necks, necks

are great for drys it was all we had until Hoffman started breeding some

Roosters that produced dry fly saddles, Hoffman, is now whiting farms

Good luck with the tying

[joe2011]

so whats the difference bewteen capes for dry fly and saddle hackle cause saddles and neck capes or both for dry flies correct? so when mesuring your dry fly hackle u want the barbs the length of the hook is that right?

[ness]

Necks are from the neck (doh!) of the chicken and have hackle ranging from small at the top/head end to medium at the lower end. You can tie a wider variety of fly sizes, including smaller ones, from a neck. Saddles come from the lower portion of the neck and across the back of the rooster. They are much longer allowing you to tie many flies from a single feather, but there is a tighter range of feather sizes. So, you might be able to tie sizes 18 to 10 from a cape, but might be limited to 14 to 12 on a saddle. You probably want the variety of sizes from a neck. Try your local hairdresser -- they have bought most of them up

For sizing, you want dry fly hackles to be slightly larger than the hook gap, approximately 1.5x the width. On a dry fly hook, that will equal about 3/4x the length of the hook shank (not including the bend).

Here's a pic from the Whiting site. The one on the left is a neck, the saddle is on the right.

[Arofishing]

Thanks for this informative thread, as a nascent fly tier I've learned a lot! I've strictly been tying bass and panfish bugs thus far due to their relative ease, but this info will prove invaluable in the future.