It’s a simple question really. Given that Grizzly hackle is critical to most western dry flies, bass bugs, saltwater streamers, and most minnow imitations, just how long can you last on your current stockpile?
… or are you waiting for the saddles to breach the $500 per barrier on eBay, before unloading while the market’s hot …
While I’ve chided you many times in the past about, “seeing a good deal and jumping on it with both feet,” this is liable to be the first such shortage felt by this latest generation of fly tiers – where the idea of hoarding and stockpiles get mulled over while you survey what storage remains in the man cave …
Us older tiers can remember when Belding-Cortescelli phased out Nymo thread, and how we bought every spool we could scrounge in advance of that dark moment.
It appears we’ll be left with the more expensive neck hackles, which may or may not be a suitable substitute, and we’ll still get plenty of Chinese saddles (6” – 7”) in Chinchilla (currently $70 for 18 feet strung), but it’s looking like the genetic saddles will be MIA for a goodly spell, much longer than first anticipated.
Hana Johnson, president of Hair Flairs, a Florida company that distributes feathers and other beauty products to salons in the United States and Canada, said she has sold a million feathers so far this year. That compares to 3,000 in 2010.
“We’ve been spinning our little feather wheels like hamsters since day one,” she said.
Hair Flairs has already bought the bulk of feathers that will be produced in 2012 by Bill Keough at Keough Hackles in southwest Michigan.
There’s about 20-50 articles on this phenomenon going to print daily, worldwide. I scan them all to dig out new developments. Every facet is being debated, from the euthanizing of chickens, the squeals of new owner’s delight, the finger wagging of us fly fishing types, and the sudden interest on ramping production of those vendors torn between profits and angry phone calls from more traditional customers.
Practitioners are on record adoring their flexibility and temporary nature, they can buy multiple colors to match multiple outfits, can add and remove them at will, so they can mix, match, and amass collections, and the chicken farmers and fly shops adore them for it.
Suggesting everyone but us is happy, the fad has legs, and we’ll have to make do with less. I would expect most fly shops will soon be taking a back seat to better funded salon merchandisers like Hair Flairs, especially if they’re buying an entire year’s output at a go.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Keough or Whiting doesn’t sell the farm and retire outright.
So as the market for gizzly hackle expands, more providers, like say; “Free Range” will leap into the market to take advantage of higher prices. Soon the Indians and the Chinese will follow suit, swamping the market and driving the price back down below its original mark. Meanwhile…your lookin at felt tip pens and Turkeys for $500.00 a cape.
Shhh. Don’t spill the beans until after I’ve secured all the white saddles and a goodly supply of permanent black felt pens.
One thing is damn sure, just how many hair dressers will be able to tell the difference, hmmm?
So what’s the problem here ? Isn’t this a prime example of The New Economy we’ve been waiting for to jump-start American industry into new directions ? You fly-tying duffers are SO last century ! Talk about a “niche” market ! No wonder the feather merchants have sold you down the river ! On the good side, however, the price of gas is going down, so you’ll have a lot more road kills for your inventory.
No wonder the feather merchants have sold you down the river ? Ouch! That is a considerably bad pun….
I thought it was more a case of tyers being, “up a creek without a hackle”.
While I don’t begrudge a business owner his or her windfall, are those salons going to be around next year (or any year for the next generation or so) to buy feathers? Probably not. Fads are just that, fads.
I hope these feather merchants have held back some of their production for the tyers that put them in business not because we deserve it, but because if they don’t some will figure out that offshore stuff is good enough and some tyers won’t come back.
I’m one of the stooges that loves to buy high priced hackle. Until, of course, I don’t. Which is now.
How can you hold back production for the tyers and be assured that it doesn’t end up selling on eBay at 4x the cost? I could maybe understand that with commerical tyers, maybe; but for the average guy I think it’d be impossible to know who would or wouldn’t give into temptation.
You don’t. But that’s the point. You make a PR splash by saying you’re making sure that fly shops and online sellers will get some production. Will they or end customers whore it out to beauty salons. Maybe.
This is like the MLB strike. It will take some time before core customers forget that they got screwed in the pursuit of temporary profits. Yet another nail in the coffin of fly shops and another boost for saddles from Asia.
There’s too many hands in the pie now. Most of the fly shops are enjoying the new business (and the possible %400 they can get via eBay), and even if Whiting made the effort, a lot of shops might opt to circumvent the angler.
Times being tough right now, and if the fisherman is spending less, the salons might be a godsend to a struggling establishment.
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This is nothing new for folks to sell out on the little guy. Example, I have been a biker for over fifty years and, in the lean years, when Harley shops were closing right and left. I would ride tewnty miles and pay $5 for a can of HD oil that was the same as the $1.50 can of Texaco at the corner. Why? Because I wanted to support and keel that shop open. Now that Dr.s & lawyers took a liking to the new HD, they won’t even let my 30 year old bike in the shop, much less work on it.