High dollar saddles, capes and necks, are they worth it?

[Harold Ray 0]

The title sums up a lot of questions on materials for fly tying and gear in general. In this case, though, when shopping for feathers, are high dollar saddles, capes and necks worth the money you have to pay to get them? I am just starting out in flyfishing and tying. So far I have had some really good teachers from the fishing standpoint, several Federation of Fly Fisher Casting Instructors and Al Crise, a Master Caster with FFF who lives in Glen Rose, Texas. I live in Waco, about 65 miles south east.

 

While at the casting seminars, I was also exposed to some very good and prolific tyers, one who has tied hundreds of thousands for Orvis, and others who teach for the Texas Parks and Wildlfe Department. They tie variety, alot, and seemingly much of the time. And, these fellows work with very good quality materials.

 

I heard names like Whiting and Metz when talking of saddles, capes and necks. Initially I had no clue what they were discussing, but after a while and a few questions, I caught on. Then I got online and started checking companies, prices and as much as possible, reputations. I saw many examples of the capes, saddles and necks from different producers and a tremendous spread in price from lower quality to high even within the same company.

 

To make a longer story shorter, and because of the information I gleaned at the seminars, I went ahead and bought a few Metz Premium saddles and necks in various colors. They are considerably less expensive than Whiting. I realize that having these, I could probably tie from now on and not use them up, but I am older, 65, and I do a lot of things for fun. For work, I am a veterinarian; that has been major fun, too, and I don't plan to retire.

 

So what do you think, does paying more, say over $100.00 for Whiting or $60.00 or $65.00 for Metz, or whatever the more expensive brands ask for their products make sense. I know the better quality products have more and nicer feathers that are longer, giving more from each feather to work with, and they are beautiful. Spectacular may even be a better description. But, are they worth it, and do they make better flies?

 

Thanks,

 

Ray

[Inconnu 0]

At the risk of sparking an argument that could go on to the next millenium, I have to say that, 1) Yes the hackle is worth the expenditure. You just have a hard time tying good quality functional flies without the proper hackle for the job. 2) Metz is good, but Whiting is better and in my opinion, one of the best bangs for your buck out there. I own Metz, Keogh, Conranch, Imperial (whoever that is), Spencers and Howards and several other commercial grade capes and I find Whiting second to none and worth the money. Having said that, if you can visit local flyshops, or perhaps someone closer to you can help with on-line sales, I often find #2 and #3 Whiting capes and saddles on sale near the end of the season (like today at 50% off) so you may not need to pay out top dollar. Try one of the small Whiting dryfly packages which I think, give you enough to tie 100 flies or so, you will see the difference right away. My 2 cents Canadian worth......Kerry

[Carver 0]

I agree hole heartedly with Inconnu! There are no better hackle than Whitings. The quill is thinner, the barbs are more uniform and they are far easier to work with.

[JRG 0]

From my experiences and a few I've heard from others I wouldn't buy Metz. I have 3 #1 necks and they all twist like a mother. I will not even give them away as I wouldn't wish this type of problem on anyone.

 

That being said, Whiting on sale can't be beat as mentioned above. I picked up a Gold brown and dark barred ginger for $45 each (50% off). Best deal I ever got. With Whiting hackle though, all grades are equal quality wise (so they say) and they are purely graded on what sizes and how many flies they will produce. A gold grade will tie more flies than a silver grade and have more hackles in smaller sizes. I bought a couple platinum necks as well and I must say they are impressive... Imagine saddle length sized feathers on a neck....

 

Other hackles are good too, not to say they suck or anything but a few of these guys will crow about a #1 grade is a #1 grade now matter who bred it... but I've bought a few of these and lets just say they are nice, but to compare them to a Whiting is an insult to Whiting Farms... Not to say they don't tie well, but when I request a neck to tie mostly 16's and smaller and only about 5% of the feathers hit this criteria I can only say I should've went with a Gold grade Whiting for the extra $30 or so.

 

Also, I'm damn picky on my hackle and tend to undersize so the smaller the better for me. If you tie larger stuff then I would say Whiting may not be the most economical hackle to get, but I would still buy Whiting as I know what I'm getting. I hear only good things about Conranch as well but I've never tied with it and quite frankly two emails went unanswered so my business went elsewhere.

 

Another note, I hit the A yesterday, and all my fish (4 to hand, missed about 10) came on a caddis I tied up right before I left and I used a light cree from Doc Knoll for a parachute hackle... (I will admit, Knoll's hackle wraps like a dream, but most of the hackle is oversized for me), but if I get a chance, I would not hesitate to buy a neck that I've picked personally from him.

[7wt 0]

Yes Whiting is worth the money. I buy only saddle hackles. I picked up about 6 different varieties a while back and they are still going strong. These can be picked up for about $30 and will give you tons of variety from size 10 down to 18's or so. They also make sweet over wings on clousers. I say start with a brown and a grizzly and go from there.

 

How long have you been fishing around Waco? I went to school there and I can tell you that the best times I had were spent in the Middle Bosque just outside Mcgreggor. There were some really good bass in there that were really spooky and a bunch of goggle eye that weren't. I also went down to Clifton a bunch, really nice little area that was just loaded with sand bass and catfish. Oh the stories I could tell you, too bad I'm not there now. I love to hit some of my old haunts. Glen Rose was great too. Whitney, Lampasas and the Llano.....I could go on and on.

[Harold Ray 0]

7wt,

 

I have been in the Waco area all of my life; I grew up at Lorena, 12 miles south, and hunted and fished up and down the streams there, bass, perch and catfish. The hunting was rabbits, squirrels, doves and ducks. After A&M and vet school, I didn't fish as much, just on and off. I backpacked a lot and went frequently to the Big Bend, 500 miles west on the border.

 

I got into kayaking, and fishing fit well with that, plus I had wanted to start again because I missed it. The bass are still here; so are the perch, bluegills and the catfish. They raised Lake Waco 7 feet, and that set off the bass. One man caught around an 11 pounder one Saturday, and then went back the next weekend and got a 10 pounder.

 

Right now, we are in the middle of a real drought, but it will break sometime along the way. Lot of people are having to cull or sell off their herds, and all the lakes and rivers are way down.

 

If you ever get back down, my clinic is in West Waco; I'll buy you a bar-b-que lunch out at Dan's.

 

Ray

[Redwings1 0]

Good morning Ray. Without going in to lot of detail, I concur that I have had my best luck with Whitting hackle, though if you know hat you are looking for you can get good hackle from other sources. I will say that I almost never buy the top grade (premium, gold, grade 1) as I usually do not see the cost/benefit over the grade 2 hackles.

[Iowaflyguy 0]

 

 

I started tying about 11 months ago and bought 2 Keough capes and 2 Keough saddles. They were the

only thing available at the nearest fly shop. As a beginner I needed everything and being on a fixed income

I had to watch the budget. At first they were fine as I just used the good feathers. As I got farther

into the capes and saddles I found a lot of very poor feathers. There is really a lot of waste.

 

For my tying I have decided that hackle is not the place to scrimp. In the next couple of months I will

need new hackle and intend to go with Whiting silver or Conranch. The savings in frustration will be

well worth it. I would say go with high quality hackle if you can afford it.

 

Regards

-Tom

[Harold Ray 0]

Tom,

 

I found an article talking about Whiting 100's which are small packs of about 10 or so feathers for about $13.00 or $14.00. It seems like a lot to oay for such a small quantity, but Whiting has their hackle knowledge down well. That package will tye approximately 100 flies. The packages apparently come graded for the particular hook size you are going to use, so all you do is buy feathers that are meant to tye that size hook. I mention it because that way just about anyone who wants to tie, while using the best, can afford to do so. There are a variety of well known companies that have these in stock.

 

Ray

 

P.S.

 

Here's the article:

 

Whiting 100's

by Ralph D'Andrea

 

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/prorevw/whiting100s.html

 

Recently, there's been a thread in the FAOL Bulletin Board about the high cost of tying materials, particularly good hackle. As is typical for me, I was able to argue both sides of the thread: good hackle is worth the cost per fly, but so expensive to get into in conventional quantities that it's often prohibitive. However, I used a product this weekend that might just be the answer to that problem for recreational tiers like me.

 

First off, let me point out that I'm not a shill for Whiting Farms, I don't work for them, I don't work for a flyshop, and I don't tie professionally. I'm reviewing this product because I've actually USED it.

 

I'm one of those guys who ties for my own fly box. Since I've only been tying for two years, I'm REALLY familiar with the initial cost of acquiring fly-tying materials. The amount of money that I spent acquiring fly-tying materials during my first year was borderline obscene. "Borderline" means it cost me more than a decent rod and less than a Rolex. However, one thing I learned in my short tying career is how much I like tying flies with high-quality genetic saddle hackle. There's nothing like it.

 

As a compromise, I bought decent necks and half-necks. A rooster neck carries a much wider gradation of feather sizes. There's also other useful stuff on a neck, like spade hackles you can use for tailing, and butt hackles you can use for woolly buggers. But there's STILL nothing like tying with high-quality saddle hackle, and it eats away at you every time you tie with something else.

 

A decent rooster saddle can cost a lot of money. Anywhere between $50 and $100 U.S., depending on the brand and grade. Even though a decent saddle might tie between 500 and 1500 flies, that's still a lot of money. If you tie for your own box like I do, you like to have a dozen or two of whatever you're going to run into under actual fishing conditions. In trout-fly terms, that means about a half-dozen different colors of feathers over about a half-dozen or so fly sizes. Considering that a full saddle in one color contains only about three or four dominant sizes of feathers, you are looking at a pretty sizable investment.

 

A recreational tier like you or me is not going to need to tie 1000 size 12 Green Drakes. That means we're not likely to use up a whole saddle anytime soon. What we're more likely to want to do is tie a couple of dozen #18 BWOs if it's spring, maybe a couple of dozen #22s if it's fall. Trouble is, it's pretty easy to scalp even a top-grade saddle of all its #22 feathers. Then what do you do?

 

Whiting Farms has figured it out.

 

Whiting Farms is the largest producer of dry-fly hackle in the world. I recently ran across a product that Whiting produces which solves two problems. First, it lets the recreational tier like me have a very wide selection of sizes and colors; second, it lets me do so without taking out a second mortgage on my house. The product I'm talking about is called Whiting 100's. It's been on the market for a couple of years; the reason why it took me so long to run into it I'll speculate on a bit later.

 

Whiting 100's are packages of about 10 or so very nice, long, consistent saddle feathers. They cost anywhere between $11 and $14 retail. What? For 10 feathers? A ripoff, right? No, not even close. The Whiting 100's are designed to tie 100 flies. I've never tested that assertion, although I have no reason to dispute it. (As a matter of fact, I tied a dozen dark dun tape-wing caddises with one feather this weekend, still had 2 inches left over on the first feather, and 9 more in the bag.) I don't know what happens if you only get 99 flies out of a package of Whiting 100's. What I do know is that if 100 is a good approximation, that's less than 15 cents a fly, and about the cost of the fish hook. Compared to the cost of a Platinum saddle, at about 2-1/2 cents per fly, that's a little expensive. But most of us weekend tiers won't live long enough to use up a Platinum saddle. To the beginning fly tier, it is the initial cost of materials that is staggering. This product solves that problem quite nicely.

 

Here's the nicest part about Whiting 100's:

 

The feathers are pre-sized and labeled according to size. When you buy a pack, the feather sizes you get out of it aren't a crapshoot. If you buy size 24, you get size 24. Now think about spending a less than 15 dollars to buy enough feathers to tie 100 size 24s. The way saddles work, there's no guarantee you'll even get 100 size 24 flies out of a $100 saddle. You with me so far?

 

The other nice thing about Whiting 100's is that they are available in the full range of colors that Whiting produces. Need Grizzly Dyed Orange for some weird fly? If you bought a full Grizzly Dyed Orange neck or saddle, your grandchildren would probably be willing it to THEIR grandchildren. I was watching Gretchen Beatty tie a fly in an unconventional color a couple of weeks ago, and she pulled the feather out of a package of Whiting 100's. Even a commercial tier like Gretchen apparently appreciates the ability to buy 100 flies worth of a weird color in a weird size for a few bucks. You buy what you're going to use. It's not just about convenience. It's about the fact that there's no waste.

 

So there it is. A way for the recreational tier like you or me to use high-quality saddle feathers, in a full range of colors and sizes, without that huge up-front investment. Although I have a grizzly saddle and a brown saddle that satisfy most of my tying needs, I won't be buying any more saddles from now on. I'll be buying Whiting 100's in just the sizes and colors I need.

 

OK, so why did it take me a couple of years to discover this product? Well, I suspect that a lot of fly shops don't stock as many of them as they could. The packages take up a lot of wall space and are a low-dollar item. So you have to ask your fly shop to order them for you, because the owner probably won't click to how cool they are all on his own. But if he's a Whiting dealer, you should ask about Whiting 100's. And if he's not, mail order them from someone who is. They are a good deal for the casual tier.

 

I had an occasion to talk to Dr. Tom Whiting this past weekend at a fly show. I told him how much I enjoyed the opportunity to use his feathers in only the sizes and colors I really needed, and told him what a great idea Whiting 100's were. He told me that it's a product that was specifically requested by weekend tiers, and that even though he has huge commercial accounts all over the world, Whiting 100's have become more than 25 percent of Whiting Farms' sales in the few short years of the product's existence.

 

I guess maybe there's more than just a few of us out there who like good feathers but hate the up-front expense. ~Ralph

 

Whiting Farms, Inc.

P.O. Box 100

Delta, CO 81416

Toll Free: 888-321-0003

Tel: 970-874-0999 Fax: 970-874-7117

Email: [email protected]

[Ephemerella 0]

Seems to be 2 sub-threads on the same topic.....

Anyway,

I've found Whiting are consistent for barb density, color consistency, length of sweet spot. Also short barbs, that means able to tie many flies down to #20 and smaller. In fact the feather shape is such that to the inexperienced eye, judging the hackle size without a gauge is difficult. For Whiting pelts, for #14 and smaller one feather is sufficiently dense to hackle a dry fly, rather than 2 as described in older fly tying texts. The color selection is a bit limited, and several are dyed. As was pointed out, the grade is simply the feather per square inch density on a given pelt.

 

The Hebert line, now owned by Whiting, is a different bird. More interesting colors, better in my opinion. Some have long sweet spots, other shorter sweet spots. Not as dense in terms of feathers per square inch. Also the feather shape is different than Whiting--if using both, you'll need a gauge to get the right fiber length.

 

I have found both have thick stems (rachis) however. The Hebert on my pelts (a couple of coachman browns) had the thickest at the bottom, but thinnest near the sweet spot.

 

I have some Collins pelts, and those seem to have the thinnest stems. While not as dense as the Whiting, they have interesting colors. Also the fiber density per feather is not anything like the Whiting (use 2 featers). The Collins pelts are relatively cheap (~$35) but are mainly dyed grizzly and other buggy colors. No kinked or twisted stems.

 

I've found the Heberts break off the most, but have the best colors (richest), the Whitings are strongest and thickest, and the Collins have most intersting colors.

 

My $0.02 worth

-E

[Guest]

Don't know how many of you are aware of a program at the Virtual flybox, it's called the Whiting Co-op

they have several a year and it allows you to get several colors or size's, yes you have to keep checking back for what they're offering but it can be worth it.

 

Virtual Flybox

 

Just click on the Whiting co-op on the home page.

 

Hope this helps a few out.

 

Fatman

[Steeldrifter 0]

 

So what do you think, does paying more, say over $100.00 for Whiting or $60.00 or $65.00 for Metz, or whatever the more expensive brands ask for their products make sense. I know the better quality products have more and nicer feathers that are longer, giving more from each feather to work with, and they are beautiful. Spectacular may even be a better description. But, are they worth it, and do they make better flies?

 

Thanks,

 

Ray

 

 

Depends on what your definition of "better flies" would be IMO.

 

 

here's my .02cents and you can take it for what its worth. You want to use materials that are of decent enough quality to make is so your time at the bench isnt frustrating time spent working with super cheap materials that wont cooperate, yet there is no need to spend a fortune ethier.

 

Not tryin' to piss anyone off with this next statement, but it's the way I see things and thats all. IMO There are two types of fly tyers. "Fishermen" & "Showmen". Theres nothing wrong with being a Showmen if thats what floats your boat...but if your like me and simply tie as a means to catch fish and not worried about winning any a beauty contest with your fly, then just buy decent enough material so its not a problem to tie with and save the super high dollar stuff for flies you plan to frame or do something other than fish with. Because a fish cant tell the difference in how much you spent

[kerusso 0]

Harold Ray,

 

You've gotten alot of good advice and I'm not sure I can add a whole to to what's been said. I've been tying for about 5 years and the dry flies always gave me fits because of the lower grade hackle I used. I would purchase my necks at Bass Pro or Cabellas and it was "ok". A friend of mine now owns a fly shop and I got a Whiting half saddle for Christmas one year from him and I could not believe how much easier it was. I have since then gotten several 100 packs as well as some Herbert Miner capes and saddles. The Herbert Miner capes, for the money, are a good investment in my opinion. For $20 you get a great neck and a free saddle. Since I've been tying I've heard Whiting being touted as the best and to be honest I dismissed that mostly as a marketing ploy. But, I've had a change of heart. There is a big difference in hackle quality. I've also heard that Conranch hackle is superb but I've never tried any. I do have a grizzly neck I got from Howards Hackle ( cost about $45 4 years ago) and it's good but no better than the Herbert Miner hackle I've been using. Folks, that's just my opinion and I'm sure some of you will disagree. I'm just sharing my experiences. Also, I tie with alot of cdc now in the place of hackle. I kinda' sorta' feel like that's the direction I will continue to go in the future. Good luck Harold Ray.

[Harold Ray 0]

You, bet, I am getting a lot of good info, and I'm really enjoying it. I have only been here for a few days and am enjoying it tremendously.

 

Fatman, thanks to the link to the Virtual Flybox; I signed up and bought a little.

 

My two main discussion groups are http://www.kayakfishingstuff.com and http://www.texaskayakfisherman.com. There are quite a few flyfishermen on both, and they show their flies, too, but I had not found a site like FlyTyingForum, one totally dedicated to flies. Using all three, I have gained a tremendous amount of information fast.

 

Ray

[Guest]

Harold,

 

No prob on the link, just keep checking back as they run other specials. I

 

Fatman