Jump to content
Fly Tying
Sign in to follow this  
flysthatfish21

Feather ?'s

Recommended Posts

I have only been tying for a little while and I was wondering if someone could explain to me the differences in hackles?

Are there dry fly and wet fly hackles? Are there soft and stiff hackles?

Right now I tie with only the few materials I have and I would like some information about the feathers and materials used in tying.

Thanks.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

There are lots of different hackles for lots of different purposes, however as a beginner you can distinguish between soft hackles (wet fly hackles) and stiff hackles (dry fly hackles). Dry fly hackles are generally from a cock (rooster cape or saddle) and wet fly hackles are generally from a hen or gamebird like partridge or a myriad of other birds with soft feathers. The dry fly hackle is usually tied fuller and is stiff to support the fly on the waters surface. The wet fly hackle has a lot of movement to represent the struggling legs of a nymph or emerger and is usually tied sparse to allow for this. I am sure others will add. Your in the right place to get the best info.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hello FTF21, go to the fly pattern database and do a search then at the bottom do a text search on the word "soft". You will see tons of great examples of soft hackle patterns. This should help to make sense of the great info. from Old Hat.

 

Cheers, Futzer

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Fliesthatfish21-

 

Welcome to tying. One of the most confusing things when you're starting out is knowing what stuff to use based on the flies you want to tie. We've all been there. Every thing is good for something, but if you're trying to tie a specific pattern you want something that will do the job.

 

Basically there are a couple of things to consider. Stiffness and softness of the barbs, length of the feather (for stuff like streamers) and the length of the barbs with respect to the hook gape (or "hook size" of feathers).

 

Stiffness you can judge by bending the stem and seeing if the barbs "spike" out straight with out clumping together (no "web"). These are good qualities for a dry fly, and are usually found on genetic roosters bred especially for these characteristics as well as the size of their barbs. The most popular brand is Whiting, and they tend to be expensive. The stiff barbs allow the fly to be supported on the water by surface tension and keeps the fly off the water.

 

For wet flies, like nymphs, soft hackles, and woolly buggers, you want soft feathers. When you bend a stem, the barbs will often clump together (web) and kind of curl around instead of pointing out straight at right angles from the stem. As Old Hat mentioned, this will allow the feathers to move around in the water to look like a living thing, but won't give the fly any support on the surface and the fly will sink.

 

You can see examples of different feathers and a brief description of what different stuff is used for here:

http://www.mwflytying.com/materials/feathers.html

 

To size a feather, for stiff dry fly hackle you can use a Hackle Gauge which fits on the stem of your vise (Griffin makes a good one for 3-5 bucks), or you can put a hook in the vise and bend it around the shank to see how long the barbs are compared to the hook gape. For dries the barbs should be roughly 1.5x the width of the gape, (though some styles might differ a bit). For wet flies, bend a webby feather around the shank and gauge the length based on what look you're going after--- on many wets you might want barbs to sweep back and reach to the point of the hook. On some flies like buggers, you might want them to be longer for more motion in the water.

 

You might want to look closely at some good store bought flies if you have them, or look through an online fly catalog. Look at the differences in stiffness and barb length of feathers on dry flies (like Adams, Wulff, or Elk Hair Caddis) compared to a wet fly (like a Partridge and Orange soft hackle) and a Woolly Bugger.

 

If you want to let us know what kind of feathers you have and what you want to tie, folks on the board would be happy to chime in with some recommendations and advice on stuff to use. Things like types of dubbing, and hair from different animals (or different parts of the same animal) often have specific characteristics that make them better for some uses in fly tying than others, and the same is true for feathers. But there often many different ways to accomplish the same thing buy using different materials with similar properties.

 

Good luck, hope this helps!

 

peregrines

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
Sign in to follow this  

×
×
  • Create New...