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Hackles
In flytying, the term hackle usually means a feather - most often from
the neck region -from poultry. (But hackle feathers for some fly patterns
can also come from a jay, starling or partridge, or from a few other birds,
as shown under 'Hackle feathers from non-poultry birds' at the end of this
chapter. It is also possible to form 'hackles' from fur fibres.)
The name 'hackle' is also given to the part of the fly where hackle
feathers are used. In many fly patterns, you wind a hackle feather around
the hook, usually at the eye end of the dressing, to form a kind of collar
of feather fibres radiating out from the hook shaft. The wound-on hackle
is the key ingredient in the appearance of many flies. To the fish, the
hackle fibres are similar to the legs and/or wings of the natural insect
that the fly is intended to imitate.
Wet flies and dry flies
The two main categories of flies for trout fishing are dry flies (designed
to float on the surface film, supported by their hackle fibres), and wet
flies (designed to sink). Most dry flies depend on the stiffer, springier
fibres from cock hackles to provide the necessary buoyancy. Most wet fly
patterns use the softer hackle fibres from hen feathers; these fibres allow
the fly to sink slowly as they wave about in the current, perhaps suggesting
the leg movements of a drowning insect or an insect coming up to the surface.
Of course, it's not quite as clear-cut as the last paragraph may suggest.
Some cock hackles are soft enough to use in wet flies. And very occasionally
you'll need a hen hackle for a dry fly, to make the fly sit in the surface
tension, imitating a hatching insect.
Now let's look in more detail at the different types of poultry hackle.
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