More feather Questions

[hankaye]

fflutterfly, Howdy;

Let me reverse my Robin statement, since I was just informed that you can't kill song birds. Sorry all. Opps. The "pop a Robin" was in jest since I can't even get myself to harvest a fish, let along kill something else that is alive. As I've said before... I a big o' hypocrite I love to eat the once live stuff but I hate to kill it. Anyway, thanks for the heads up on the no no and thanks for the help I always get from this forum. I've said it once I'll say it again FLYMOHFORUM.COM is the best. (What if the bird is dead? Can I harvest the feathers?)

I asked around last year about collecting the feathers that 'drop-off' the Sand Hill Cranes that choose to nest here in Southern N.M.
I was informed that as they are Migratory they fell under the Fed's. Regulations. What I learned was, It was ok to get the licenses and
shoot one BUT ... it was illeagle to just pick-up the cast off feathers ..... Is it just me, or does that seem to be backwards ???????

hank

[Ron Eagle Elk]

fflutterffly,

I've found that Coq de Leon hen necks work pretty well for a Partridge sub and they are available in two colors, a silver and brown. The markings on the feathers have a nice Partridge look to them, the barbs are soft and, like a good neck, has feathers smaller than I can tie with.

Anyone know why breeders call a hen saddle or neck Coq? Shouldn't it be Galena? Just askin here.

Hank,

You might also want to find out how the feathers from the legally harvested cranes can be used. When it comes to plummage, the Feds have some odd restrictions.

[Old Hat]

FFfly - I would just use partridge. With some practice you can go right to the tips of most feathers and get the right size hackle. If this is too frustrating then what I have done is taken a little lesson from Skues. Skues liked to tie his nymphs with the hackle fanned out from the hook much like we would want a hackle rotating around the hook shank on our softies.

Here is what I do. I first prep the fibers from one side of the partridge feather. I slide thumb and forefinger down the stem so the hackle fibers are 90 degrees to the stem. This should line up the tips of a bunch of fibers. I carefully strip the fibers from the stem keeping the tips aligned. I place them on the shank of the hook with the tips of the hackle over the eye and measure the desired length from the rear of hook eye to the hackle tip. With a couple gentle wraps I rotate the hackle around the hook shank just behind the hook eye. Leave this here and finish the rest of the fly body, thorax etc. you final step in tying the fly is to bring the thread up behind the hook eye and just in front of the distributed hackle fibers. With the fingers of your left hand pull the fibers back as evenly as possible and jam a few wraps of thread in front of the base to hold them out and form the head of the fly. Use the thread to place the hackles how you want (straight out, back a little etc.) by building thread in front of them.

Of course if your only looking for like action then startling it is at along with snipe but that is another story.

[crazy4oldcars]

The reason for the no possession rule is the difficulty of proving how you acquired the feathers. Did you REALLY just find them on the ground?
Also, if you allow road kill or found feathers, there will be a sudden rash of road kill and found feathers, with the end result being a lack of breeding birds. Might as well have just let you shoot them in the first place.

Good luck with your rebuilding efforts.

Regards,

Kirk

[fflutterffly]

tied a Starling neck feather as my hackle on a 24 last night. Worked fine. Problem is the Hackle Pliers. Still working on that problem.

[hankaye]

Ron E E, Howdy;

Hank, You might also want to find out how the feathers from the legally harvested cranes can be used.
When it comes to plummage, the Feds have some odd restrictions.

Sorry about not responding sooner, Thanks for the tip about checking about usage. Last year when I spoke
to one of the Feds. he didn't seem to think anything out of the 'normal' about using them for tying. Albeit,
the question was not asked poit-blank... Think I may have to unwind the soup cans and waxed twine.
I'll look in to it soon.

Thanks again.

hank