Dry fly tying

**geoffvl** · June 6th, 2008, 10:25 AM

I've been tying for half a year. Just nymphs and streamers though. I have a few dry flies that I bought a while ago. I want to start tying them now but it seems so pricey. The necks cost 40-80 bucks each. You can buy the seperated hackles in 100 flys each. But then you have to buy each size you want and each colour you want. So you'd have to buy size 12-20 at 15 bucks each in brown, grizzly, dun. Still adds up to lots of money. I'm thinking buying the full necks are the best deal in the long run. Colours needed for the main flys are grizzly, brown, blue dun, cream and black. Anyone know a cheaper way to make dry flies?

**bc_speys** · June 8th, 2008, 12:32 PM

Hi geoffvl.
Tying dry flies is not as difficult as it seems. First off, I use saddles for the hackle. With todays genetically engineered birds you get a far superior feather in terms of length of feather and consistency of length of barbule. This means you can tie more flies with one feather, making it more economical. Also, your hackle will be more consistent in terms of profile and colour.
With a whole saddle you are able to tie a variety of different sizes of fly, from 18's to 8's for example.
If a whole saddle isn't in your budget, half saddles are available or you can get combination packs where you get a half grizzly and a half brown saddle in the same package for instance.
Just look for saddles where the feathers aren't too webby, for this absorbs water and reduces floatability. ( is that a word?) Flotation maybe.
You want nice, even, stiff barbules with no web.
Neck hackle can be used for the tails as they tend to have much longer barbules. These can be purchased strung and are relatively inexpensive.
I have a grizzly saddle from Metz, that is dry fly quality that has feathers that are eleven inches long. One of these feathers will hackle at least 5 flies.

Hope I've helped,

Cliff

**knotnot** · June 8th, 2008, 01:04 PM

Hi

Thanks for the question.

bc speys , thank you for the info !

Cheers

**geoffvl** · June 10th, 2008, 09:34 AM

Thanks alot. I didn't know you could do a size 18 with saddle. I thought they were for larger flys!

**bc_speys** · June 10th, 2008, 07:21 PM

It's pretty cool what they've done with genetics. I have a grizzly saddle patch that has feathers that are 9 - 11 inches long that are only 3/16 inch wide. when I bend the feather to simulate wrapping it around a hook, the barbules are only 1/4 inch long on average, with some longer and some shorter. Think of how many size 16 flies you could tie with just one feather.

Cliff.