Mark- I apologize for misplacing your address, but if you send your snail-mail address to me off-list, I can show you what "spey hackle" is (at least a modern version; in the truest fashion, the coque from a special breed of roosters around River Spey, Scotland is what was used... but those birds are thought extinct. We have decent 'modernizations' these days, though, as you'll soon see :) )
The best description I've heard is "Immagine a web-less Coque Rooster-tail feather" and one of the most confusing, yet descriptive phrases is "take an entire Ostrich Herl plume, strip the barbs from the secondary flues, leaving the flues as if hackle barbs, then picture a thread-thin quill, and it's a decent representation"... but all examples I have contain a far higher "barb count" than that second mental- picture... You'll see when I send some examples. :) It used to be that Blue Heron was a substitute, but that's illegal to use these days. The best substitute I've seen these days (that is legal) is Eider Duck flank. Another common feather is Blue- Eared Pheasant, which is actually shorter in quill- length and has 'stringier' barbs than the pictures of older/ "original" hackle I have... which really isn't original stuff, but just an artist's rendition! heheheh- go figure. Regardless, there's several different examples out there, and I'd love to send some if you'd like. Tight wraps, Pete Gramp pete dot gramp at gmail dot com On Nov 26, 2007 3:01 PM, Mark Beresford II <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > maybe a stupipd question, but "Spey Hackle"... > Spey Casting....Spey Hackle?? > > what the hecks spey hackle?? lol, thanks! > > mark. > > ------------------------------ > Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your > homepage.<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51438/*http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs> >
