Feathers: buying decent marabou
The other evening, I was tying up a few flies for still-water, and I was getting to the end of a pack of marabou. When I remarked to the family that I was running out of feathers, I got some funny looks. That’s because as I said that there were wisps drifting about me in the air, there was some getting in my nose, and there were black feathers all over the place. But they were the wrong feathers you see.
Those who use marabou, will know what what I am talking about, feathers with thin, sharp ends. No fluff at the ends.
In desperation I looked in a packet that I thought contained grey marabou. As it turned out, it only looked grey because the old plastic packet (with a “Fly-fisherman” price tag of R4-50 on it!), had whitened. Inside, it contained the most glorious black marabou, as I remember marabou from 20 years ago:
Now that is a proper feather.
Look for feathers like this when buying marabou. Some packets have a lot more of this in them than others.
