Four New Chicks Growing Up (PIX)

[lesa]

Hoodat, I would love to send you some neck feathers for your fly tying! Would you want some? I always feel so bad throwing away feathers, and since we skin and don't scald, the feathers look perfect...

 

[hoodat]

Hoodat, I would love to send you some neck feathers for your fly tying! Would you want some? I always feel so bad throwing away feathers, and since we skin and don't scald, the feathers look perfect...

If you skin learn to preserve the hackle. The hackles still on the skin are scarce. There is a scarcity of good feathers in the trade. Factory farming produces really lousy feathers, weak and filthy. Years ago I set up a deal between the Negritos in the Phillipines and a fly tying house. You might try sending a letter off to some of them. There's a market out there for them.
Unfortunately my hands and eyesight aren't as good as they once were. In Nevada I used to tie a size 22 black gnat that simulated the tiny flies that hatch out of the snow in the Winter. I probably couldn't even see one of those tiny trout flies now and I'm sure my shaky hands couldn't tie one.

 

[rebbetzin]

Those neck hackles made me want to get out my fly tying kit and tie up some trout flies. :/

I'd like a hat made of those feathers!! They are so pretty. So far they have not lost any of those.

 

[hoodat]

My mother used to have a pillbox hat that was entirely covered in feathers like that. I forget what year that was the style.