Don't spend much time on this forum as I don't tie many flies or fish with them much, but I have done a lot in the past. What prompted this was talking to a buddy that sells fly tying materials and he was telling me about what has happened to the cost of necks due to hair extensions. My question, is the cost and supply as really as dramatic as he suggested !! Sounds like any serious tyer is paying outrageous prices for even low and medium quality necks, while the top quality necks are almost impossible to find. What are you folks finding ???
They doubled in a lot of stores. I have a life time stash so I don't buy but I do look.
Not all feathers, just the long ones like in the 100's packs.
I bought a whole pheasant (beautiful colors too) for $9.
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Like said, it was the long hackles that were in high demand. Usually grizzly, and died grizzly were hard to find. And when you found them they were pricey for sure. Luckily the whole fad trend has gone bye bye, for the most part. I have talked to hairdressers about it and they said while it was a new trend they would be getting over 30 girls a day coming in for the stupid feather thingy, as of a month or so she had said that only about 1 or 2 a day are asking for the hackles.
I know a guy who had a bunch stockpiled up and was selling them on e bay for like 3 bucks a feather. Kinda outrageous if ya ask me. I just stopped using the grizzly hackle for a while. The stimys I tied up this summer worked just fine. They were not as pretty but they still did their job.[sly]
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Yep I agree don't understand how the hackles makes there hair look any better hopefully hare dubbing and mohair never become a fashion trend [
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http://vimeo.com/19485702
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The hackle famers such as Whiting have definitely made no secret that they are not loyal to the fly fisher but are indeed after the all might $. Understandable, but they have cause a bit of a bad taste in some fishers mouth so to speak that they now search for alternatives.
So the hair craze has pretty much come and gone, next comes:
(parents use judgement opening this)
http://www.tmz.com/...d=hero1#.Txck0Zghy4k
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I had 5
dles that I paid a total of maybe $150 for over the years. I sold them on Ebay a few months ago for $860. I'm hoping prices come back down soon so I can start tying streamers again.
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