Capes and Saddles
Cock capes and saddles.
Making a dry or a wet fly requires usage of feathers – these are mostly cock or hen neck or saddle feathers. High quality feathers provide the hackle with the desired floatability for dry flies or softness for wet flies and streamers. Our shop offers a wide range of cock and hen capes and saddles, e.g. affordable Indian capes and highest quality genetic capes and saddles from Keough, Whiting or Metz.
What to choose saddle or cape, hen or cock.
As cock feathers tend to be stiffer than hen’s, cock capes and saddles are better for making dry fly hackle whereas the ones from hen are more effective in wet flies and streamers.
Special genetic cock cape has a greater variety of feather sizes than the saddle – from one good quality cock neck cape you will be able to pick hackle feathers for flies sized 8-26. In case of feathers from the saddle cape, the feathers are usually very similar in terms of the width – in case of saddles used for tying dry flies, this will usually be sizes 12-14. However feathers from the saddle used for dry flies can be very long - up to 20 cm. Furthermore, such a feather has even barbs across its entire length which makes it possible to make as many as 10 flies out of one feather. Typical genetic cock neck capes and saddles in grizzly and brown are thinner and a bit better quality than those which are grey, white or white painted.