What bird does marabou come from?

[fly123 0]

what bird does marabou come from?

[panfish 12 0]

Marabou is the rump feathers of a chicken.

[birdfinger 0]

turkey

[rockworm 0]

I think marabou originally derived from the marabou stork. I believe present day marabou comes from domestic turkey.

[utyer 0]

Rockworm has it right. Marabou originally came from the marabou stork. Now most marabou comes from domestic turkey. The birds raised for food are all white, and can be dyed into all the different colors. You can get a nice soft gray marabou from the under side of a wild turkey, and there are also marabou like feathers on pheasants and other birds.

 

"Chickabou" is marketed by Whiting Farms. These are the soft marabou like feathers from chickens.

 

Almost any soft fluffy feather can be used like marabou. The fluff on the end (base,) of most hackle feathers can be used like marabou, but it is rather short.

[Capt Bob LeMay 0]

As noted above all of our maribou today comes from domestically raised turkey (and thank heavens our appetites will guarantee an almost unlimited supply). Like many other natural materials turkey maribou is a substitute for the original maribou stork, now protected these many years (they were protected when I first took up tying in 1976)... Similarly calftail is a substitute for impala tail (and to this day oldtimers that I've known continue to call calftail "kiptail" which was the slang for impala...)

[riffleriversteelheadslayer 0]

UMMM Bob I'm no old timer but I call it Kiptail

[heavynets 0]

Many stores, including Bass Pro, call it Kip tail.

 

Among its many definitions, Kip is defined as:

n.

1. The untanned hide of a small or young animal, such as a calf.

2. A set or bundle of such hides.

 

I saw no reference to only an impala.

[JSzymczyk 0]

I also learned "Kip" tail referred to the old time use of Impala from Africa. I must have read it in some of the old books, perhaps Ray Bergman or Helen Shaw.

[Al Beatty 0]

Hi group,

 

I'm not sure about the origins of marabou but today it comes from the crotch area of a turkey and chickabou comes from the same area on a chicken (hen or rooster). Soft Hackle with Chickabou is the breast feathers at the top of the pelt with the crotch feathers (chickabou) at the bottom. Take care & ..

[Capt Bob LeMay 0]

Tough to think of yourself as an "oldtimer" but I might qualify. One of my first tying influences, Harry Friedman, was a contemporary of Joe Brooks and can still be seen in the early books that Brooks did just after WW2.. That was back when it was okay to stand posed next to ten or twenty dead bonefish and before those new fiberglass rods...

 

My very first bonefish fly that actually worked was one of his patterns and no one would even think of tying one today (it had a pink wool body, ribbed with silver mylar, a green hair tail, a white calftail wing, a dark brown throat, and a fl. orange head...

 

Tight lines

Bob LeMay

(954) 435-5666

[primitivepete 0]

Marabou comes from the Marabuzzard.