Feathers

Feathers may seem to be the most obvious purchase at the craft store, but the buyer needs to be wary. Recently for this page I sorted through every package of strung saddle hackle at a craft store, and I found only one package worth buying. The saddle hackle is usually of a quality suitable for tailing and wings on flies such as deceivers and may be suitable as hackle for flies such as woolly worms and woolly buggers. The hackle will definitely not be of dry fly quality. You should also be aware that not all the dyes used on some of these feathers may be water-fast. I had a friend who bought a feather boa made of marabou, of what was just the right color for his favorite fly. He tied his flies, and then when he went fishing with them, was surprised to end up retrieving flies with white marabou after a few casts. He went home and took a look at the label on his feather boa which clearly said "dye not water-fast." You could of course buy a white feather boa and dye it using colorfast dyes or Kool-Aid (dying of materials is a subject for a different page) to get the desired color. Anyway, the stores are not likely to be sources of great feathers, but may provide some serviceable feathers for specific patterns. At dollar stores you may also find true feather dusters, and the plumage from these may also provide a few feathers for a few specific patterns. Probably far and away the most useful feathers to be found in craft stores are various types of peacock feathers. Small packages of strung peacock herl can often be found as well as peacock eyes. Sometimes whole peacock tail feathers with nice herl and eyes are often available as well. Packages of feathers with varying quality of marabou are available as well. Guinea fowl plumage (a brown feather with white spots) is also usually available. Guinea fowl feathers are great for hackling wet flies. Although every craft store I've ever entered had pheasant tail feathers for sale, few had any worth buying, but you might as well look. A package of pheasant body plumage may com in handy for either hackling wet flies, or for tailing wet flies. Flats and primaries form turkeys are common in craft stores and may have some limited uses. Biots are also sometimes available at craft stores, but usually are not longe enough to make wound bodies, but are usually long enough for tails on various flies. Marabou is also avaialbe in packages (as well in boas) and many colors are dyed with water-fast dyes (make sure you read the label!!) You will not be able to fill all your feather needs at the craft store, but you will be able to fill some specific niches.

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