Beautiful fly! A question for you, though: are some "red grouse" redder than others? It might be just the warm lighting in your image (or my incipient "materials envy" :lol: ) but that hackle seems to have more of an orange-y glow compared to the mahogany of my bulk packaged feat...

Hans-- Thanks for elaborating; again, great looking ties...

Very nice--I love the spare/shiny abdomen combined with the "wooled-up" thorax. A question, though: for a "fishing" fly, would you feel the need to lacquer the krystal flash to make it more durable, or might it hold up through a reasonable number of fish?

Thanks for the reply--I'm in the midst of "reconfiguring" my materials hoard as I get sucked into y'all's little world, so I'm trying to sort out what's essential from what's just "nice to have." Now tell me again when I'll start saving all that money? :) Right now, I think I hav...

Excellent: we have a Little Green Stonefly hatch here in the Smokies where that fly would do very nicely! :) A question for you: is there really much difference between Indian hackle and genetic hen hackle in terms of number of fibers or stiffness? While I pony-up for Whiting rooster hackle for my d...

Mark-- Excellent links, thank you. I've had, what?, maybe three posts on this board and y'all have already got me spending money...

Mark-- Thanks for the follow-up...I'll think about the CdL hen saddles, though I've not come across but one vendor online (Bearden's in Massachusetts ) that had them listed. If any other sources come to mind, I'd appreciate the tip.

[quote] It'd be a great substitute for Partridge for smaller flies./quote] Mark-- I'm curious, does the hackle range skew toward the smaller sizes on your cape (say, #14 and smaller) or are you finding bigger sizes (#10-12) as well? Since I fish relatively infertile freestoners for wild trout, "...