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What are the most useful feathers from a coot for tying?

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Harvested a coot 2-day,cause i remembered seeing a soft hackle that called for coot. What feathers should i keep.I don't wanna borax the whole cape.

shane

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In your shoes, I would just pluck the feathers I wanted and store them in small baggies. The most useful feathers for traditional soft-hackle flies come from the leading edge of the wing, the marginal coverts. On a coot there are precious few in the #10 to #18 range, so take care removing them from the skin. I suspect slips from the wing primaries and secondaries would make killer wings, but I have never used them. I would also take a look at the bird's neck and head feathers to see if they are suitable for soft-hackle use. By the way, I believe coot are on the migratory bird list. Is it lawful to hunt them?

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I have a coot skin I have not used yet, but if you google "Using Coot feathers for tying flies" you will find reference to a number of uses. Boraxing the whole skin would not be a big job but plucking them is a good alternative. Somewhere I have heard reference to using the feathers for spey patterns but I cannot remember where I read or heard this.

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What the heck is a coot?

 

A really nasty fish eating waterfowl. Not a duck, because it doesn't have webbed feet and has red eyes, and when cleaned, smells like nasty old fish. Not worth eating!!!

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coot

noun /ko͞ot/ 

coot, plural; coots, plural

 

A foolish or eccentric person, typically an old man

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In your shoes, I would just pluck the feathers I wanted and store them in small baggies. The most useful feathers for traditional soft-hackle flies come from the leading edge of the wing, the marginal coverts. On a coot there are precious few in the #10 to #18 range, so take care removing them from the skin. I suspect slips from the wing primaries and secondaries would make killer wings, but I have never used them. I would also take a look at the bird's neck and head feathers to see if they are suitable for soft-hackle use. By the way, I believe coot are on the migratory bird list. Is it lawful to hunt them?

yell there on the migratory bird list. you can kill 15 a day in WV

shane

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You can hunt them but you CANNOT sell them. That is why they are not in catalogues.

They have a foot like a flamingo.

Body feathers make a great leech pattern.

Use red thread and it takes two to three feather for a size 10 hook.

 

Rick

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Coots are terrible little birds, they smell horrible and just just swim back and forth through your decoy spread. I hate them. I like the idea of tying flies with them because we need a reason to shoot more of them.

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You can hunt them but you CANNOT sell them. That is why they are not in catalogues.

They have a foot like a flamingo.

Body feathers make a great leech pattern.

Use red thread and it takes two to three feather for a size 10 hook.

 

Rick

 

Can you give them to your friends?

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Rick is right!

 

As coots don't have a "webbed foot", they are not considered to be in the same category ad "Ducks (Geese) and Swans" but rather they fall in the same category as American Woodcock, morning dove and other migratory game birds that have restrictions upon the marketing of their feathers.

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