Is the feather hair craze over yet?

[Shoemoo]

There's three places to buy tying materials locally. Sportstman's Warehouse, a Cabela's retail store, and a local fly shop. I started tying in the summer of this year, when the feather thing was hitting full force. You could not buy a rooster saddle hackle feather for love nor money. I checked on ebay, and some of those grizzly saddles were going for $500+.

One of the cashiers at SW said they had people coming in and buying hundreds of dollars worth of feathers at a time. The LFS guys were all surly about selling theirs to people who were not long time customers.

SW has been slowly getting some stock back in over the past few weeks. Mostly Whiting size graded 100 packs in hook sizes too small for what I tie. The smallest hook size I tie on is 10. I haven't been into the LFS lately. Cabela's had been sold out for months (and still is.)

I had to go to SW today for something else, and finally got a nice grizzly half saddle in a Whiting bugger pack. How is the feather situation in your neck of the woods? Think prices will go back down again, or will the whole feather fashion thing come back once the weather gets warmer?

 

[toadfrog]

They are adding to it . They are now putting the tips on their finger nails . I helped one of the girls put some on hers last weekend .

 

[jjsjigs]

The fad is still going strong in North Central PA. I'm still fielding calls from hair salons... somehow they have figured out I have a stockpile of neck and capes.

 

[Fatman]

JJ

Not hard for them to find out!! They figured out that they're basically feathers for tying flies and they've been searching on every board I've been on wanting them. They go into fly shops and buy them out, and if they can't get the shops to sell to them they send someone else in.

I offered a lady every saddle hackle I had, then she balked on the deal saying it was too much.

Some areas it's getting over with and others still going. It's gonna be one of those wait and see what happens. If the price was right I'd sell mine, I've got plenty of capes to carry me over.

 

[JUNGLEJIM1]

I havn't sold any in a couple months,the prices were dropping so I stopped listing. I have more and I'll wait until it get's warmer and see if they start going up in price again. If not, there's plenty left for me to tie with.

 

[redman]

I started one of my Native brothers into the feather business when it first started out. He sells at Canton, Texas at the big swap meet. Now he has a stash of his own. When the craze is over I will get a bunch of nice capes and saddles at a good price. I am like most have a good supply at least for myself.

As long as I can still get kip tails, marabou, and duck flank feathers I will be ok. I did snagged some very nice big streamer necks at a very good price. Just hope that they don't start out putting any of those feathers in their hair. Some one told me that Mini Marabou was starting to get hard to find.

Redman

 

[Fatman]

I've seen pictures where they're putting cape feathers on their fancy dogs now. That will be bad if it takes off

 

[AtticaFish]

It took awhile before i saw any feathers in hair around my area, so figure it must be the same in other places. Have a feeling it will take awhile (or just a 'new' fad) before this one slips away.

But - one can only assume that the demand will drive the supply up and eventualy flood the market with stock...... letting the prices settle back down. Right??? Well, unless the few farms that raise the birds keep the supply low on purpose to keep the demand going and prices up. Think of how OPEC controls the flow of foreign oil into the US so they get the price THEY want.

Have also heard it takes 2 or 3 years to raise the 'fancy' birds with the higher grade feathers before they are full grown and can be harvested. The feather fad has been talked about on the net for i would guess a year & a half or 2 now - so new bird stock should be coming on the market soon.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Geez, I hope fashion doesn't discover rabbit zonkers...