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Hackle colours
Postby Mike Connor » 22 Nov 2011, 23:05
I have confined myself to descriptions here. I hope to have a full catalogue of the "normal" hackle colours of various feathers completed this year, with actual photos of the feathers. But it is only half finished at the moment.
FURNACE - Has a very dark, black or blue dun list next to the stem and on the tips of the fibres. In between the dark list and the tips is a good color, usually a red, yellow, white or silver.However, nowadays the term “Furnace” means a hackle with black list and red tips!
Until 1885 the terms, “Furnace” and “Coch y bonddu” were used interchangeably for the same hackles, which were either black list/red tips, or black list/ red / black tips. Hofland was the first author to use the term “coch a bonddu” in 1839, and specified the colour as “red and black” Francis Francis also specified “A dark red hackle with a black streak up the middle”. A number of other authors made similar observations.
This meant that to that date, the hackle used to represent a Coch y Bonddu beetle was dark red with a black list, which is now universally referred to as “Furnace”.
G.M Kelson, who wrote for the “Fishing Gazette”, on salmon flies, published his idea for “standardising” the hackle descriptions. He stated that furnace was black/red and coch y bonddu was black/red/black. He also invented several other quite fanciful names, like “Blue Furnace” etc. Not a single fly-dresser or angler, of the many who replied to the Gazette, agreed with him! When challenged, he admitted simply inventing most of the names. Strangely though, many of Kelson´s “misnomers” have gradually taken over!!! Many are generally used today.
Kelson was also the centre of some other controversies. The most famous one being when R.B. Marston, the editor of the “Fishing Gazette”, publicly completely dismantled some of his theories and ideas on salmon flies. This was accompanied by a famous cartoon “The Inky Boy”. Dr.Andrew Herd has already provided the background on this “The Gaudy Salmon Fly” ; http://www.flyfishinghistory.com/salmon_fly.htm
The correct spelling of furnace was also once “Furness”, an old English Game Fowl breed which was popular in the Hundreds of Furness in Lancashire.
This might only be of minor interest, but it has a major effect on the interpretation of patterns used and published before that time! The outstanding example here being the “Greenwells Glory”, for which the good Canon Greenwell specified a coch y bonddu hackle. A hen hackle was most likely used for the original, which was dressed as a wet fly, and there were virtually no coch y bonddu hens in existence, and there still are not! Skues actually stated on several occasions that they did not exist.
This is not exactly true, I have some coch y bonndu hen hackles, but they are the only ones I have ever seen, and are very very rare, to the extent that they may only be treated as “freak” capes.
So, the original feather used for the Greenwells Glory, was a furnace hen! Nowadays, for light flies, a “Greenwell” hackle is used, this is a light or “ginger” furnace hackle. This description has only been used since about 1950.
More information http://www.flyfishinghistory.com/greenwells_glory.htm
HONEY DUN- Has a gray or blue dun list with honey colored tips. When the list is dark, the hackle is called Dark Honey Dun and when the list is light it is called Light honey Dun. The neck, breast, back and shoulder feathers from a Golden Plover are a a perfect dark honey dun!
For anybody wishing a sample of true dun. It is the same colour as an adult cock starling primary feather. This is a medium grey with a faint brown “impression” and no trace of blue!
Lastly, the colour "Dun" itself was an extremely rare colour in poultry hackles, although it is common in game bird and similar “soft” hackles. . ( There are now genetic poultry duns available. I have only ever seen one true dun cape which was not genetic. When "dun" is used in many of the older books, then "blue dun" is often meant, as they had no true "dun" feathers either. Real "dun" is a dull dusty ( sometimes referrred to as "dirty") greyish brown colour, with no sign of blue in it.
Dun originally meant a brownish grey to dull greyish brown. many authors and flydressers over the years used the expression in a number of ways. This has caused great confusion for many, not least as a written description can hardly suffice to describe various colours and variations thereof. Also, some language usage has changed over the years.
Descriptions like "brassy blue dun" which is a grey/blue colour with a golden yellow "sheen" to the feathers, or "Honey dun", which is a feather with honey/ginger coloured tips, and a grey/brown list, ( the "list" is the centre stripe of a feather), or "Rusty dun", which is a blue/grey/brown feather with reddish or yellowish spots, have considerably added to the confusion. many of these feathers were quite rare anyway, and it is doubtful whether flies dressed with them were any more effective than flies dressed with other feathers, or with double hackles etc. Most dun colours do not have the sheen associated with modern genetic hackle for instance. The "list" of many blue dun coloured feathers was often rather webby, and in fact less suitable for dry flies.
"Olive dun", is a browny/grey feather with a strong olive cast.
"Brown dun", is a brown feather with a greyish cast, and so it goes on.
"Blue Dun" is a grey/blue feather with a brownish cast.
All these descriptions are also used with modifiers, like "light", "medium", "dark", "pale" "Spangled "Brassy", "Rusty" and a number of other combinations, some of which are given above.Various feathers now referred to as "Something/ duns", were also referred to as "Furnace", this term, without a modifier ,refers to a hackle with red tips and a black list. "Blue furnace" is a hackle with light red to gold tips and a blue/grey list,also often referred to as "honey dun", and the possibilities go on...............
With regard to barred and banded feathers, a small selection would be, "Cuckoo", Grizzle, creel, cree, monkey, chinchilla, irish grey, and many others.
The modern genetic black and white barred “Grizzly” hackles are in fact “Cuckoo”. "Grizzle", “Grizzled”, or Grizzly” is not a colour as such, but describes the barring! Grizzly is now however generally taken to mean black barred white feathers.
Hackle” is a generic term, used by fly-dressers to describe any feather or material which they wind around a hook to simulate a fly´s legs or similar.
Some Cock ( from a Cockerel or Rooster) and Hen hackle colours are more or less standard. The various growers use varying descriptions. Some dressers also use various descriptions, as do many authors, and there is some controversy about some colours. There always has been! It should also be remembered that the meanings of various descriptions change in time, some references in old books must be seen as such.
The term “list” refers to the centre of the feather. A “dark list” appears as a dark stripe up the centre of the feather.
Some extremely rare hackle colours like the "kneecap" as described by Kelson, "a hackle with red list and edges, and black in between" and many other “freak” colours may be found, although if one wished to dress a fly with such a hackle the chance of obtaining one in the required quality, is about as close to zero as one can get! Although it is fairly easy to produce some very close imitations for some feathers nowadays, using permanent markers.
Single colour Feathers
1 White = Pure white
2 Cream = From off white to dark cream
3 Ginger = From dark cream to pale red
4 Red ( Red game) = From pale red to dark red. This is a brown/red common in hackles.
5 Black = Jet black ( also very rare) Very many dark feathers are actually dark, usually blue, duns.
Bi-coloured Feathers
6 Badger = Black list, outer white or cream, tips often black.
7 Yellow badger = Black list, outer from cream to pale or medium ginger, tips of barbs sometimes black.
8 Furnace Black list, outer from ginger to dark red. Tips of barbs sometimes black. ( when tips black, also called Coch-y-bonndu) Pale or ginger furnace is also now referred to as “Greenwell”.
Barred Feathers
9 Cuckoo = Black and white bars. Pale to dark can be used to describe the general colouration of the whole hackle. ( See “Grizzle”)
10 Creel = As cuckoo but ginger or red replaces the black. ( i. e. Barred ginger on white)
11 Grizzle = Not a colour on its own, but a description of the marking! For example “Ginger Grizzle” is ginger with a certain amount of barring showing. “Blue Dun Grizzle” is blue dun with barring.
DUN Feathers
12 Dun = A pale dun colour. ( was extremely rare!) In most older books, the term “Dun” when used for poultry hackles, refers to “Blue Dun”
13 Blue Dun = From pale blue grey to near ( blue) black, with a brownish overtone to a lesser or greater extent.
14 Rusty Dun = Blue dun or dun spangled with rust colour or dark "speckles" also usually with a darker list and straw coloured tips. If pale, medium , or dark is used, this should refer to the shade of the blue dun.
15 Honey Dun = Blue dun list, outer normally honey colour, but can be from cream to near red. If pale medium or dark is used, this should refer to the shade of the blue list, the shade or colour of the outer colour to be described if required.
Off Coloured Feathers
16 All other hackles which cannot be placed in any of the classes and have to be described. “CREE” is one such off colour, as it contains black/red/White/yellow or variations of barring. This is actually a freak coloured feather, and quite rare. These feathers were once called “Chinchilla”. Some breeders now offer cree capes and saddles, but there is still some controversy and discussion about the colour definition.
With regard to natural colours, Whiting Farms are indisputably the world leaders, and their colour descriptions are more or less the de-facto standard for most dressers: Jim Slattery has an excellent colour chart on his site;
http://www.jimsflyco.com/Whiting-hackle-color-wall.asp
TL
MC
deep-diving into a wealth of knowledge, unfortunately not my own...
