We're talking about one of the most hated feathers known for tying spey flies. Burnt Goose. Oh, it looks great in the package. You buy it, you get it home and are excited to tie with it. Then it happens....The stem. That huge ugly stem. It's the downfall of burnt goose. The fibers are great and look very similar to heron, but the stem is so ungainly, ugly and cumbersome to wrap, that it negates any benefit the sweet looking fibers had. The answer, just split the stem and soak them in water before wrapping. But...that's a major pain. Enter the Feather Pusher....(that'd be me)
The picture above shows my answer to the burnt goose dilemma. What I have done is finely split the quill. My experience in building wooden arrows and making my own feather fletching had taught me how to split a large quill to leave the minimum of stem attached to the fibers. That's what I've done here. Each feather is painstakingly hand split. Then I've dyed them in 10 different fish catching colors. That way you don't end up with an annoying white stripe down the center of the quill, like would happen if you tried to split a quill that had already been dyed. All that's left to do is soak the feather for a few minutes and then tie with it. The fiber length on these quills is about 2" or better and they will hackle a large fly. They wrap as nice as any blue eared I've used and I'm excited to be offering these new feathers. Be sure to check my "Feathers" page in the following days for pricing and packaging options as I get them processed. Here's a fly I tied with the orange and purple ones.
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