Learn how to use specialty natural feathers for fly tying and other fly fishing tips in this free instructional video.
Alvin has been a fly fishing guide and casting instructor for 12 years, and has been fly fishing for 32 years. He is a graduate of the first Joan Wulff fly-casting instructor's school, and has fished all over the western United States, Canada, Belize, Argentina, Chile and Honduras.
ALVIN DEDEUX: Okay. Well, within the world of feathers, we have like what we call a specialty feathers, and these are usually rooster feathers and they'll call them genetic feathers because the birds are actually genetically engineered to produce these types of feathers. And you can pay a pretty good price. I mean, you could pay for a little saddle patch like this. Inexpensive would be maybe 15, 20 bucks and you could pay as much as 70 or 80 bucks for this, and it's just because of the feathers. The center of the feather is going to be really thin and the barbs are going to be really long and spiky. And they will actually have a person who will go through and grade these feathers. Like this is a grade A. This is a grade B, or this is a number one or this is a number two. And there's actually quite an art to the feathers, the specialty feathers, mostly rooster feathers, and they call them genetic hackle because the roosters are actually genetically engineered to produce these types of feathers. They have different types of feathers, different roosters. They'll grow the rooster so that their legs are longer so the feathers can grow longer before they drag on the ground. It's quite a kind of off the beaten path type of industry, but a lot of people devote a lot of time to these speciality feathers.
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