I use rit, its very simple. Also you can pick up a product called fly dye on e-bay pretty cheap. There is also veniards, more expensive but some nice colors. the only color I wont do is black, very tough to get it deep. Check out fly tyer variant for saddles, he has pictures of the individual saddles so you can see exactly what you are buying. He has the whiting euro/flatwing saddles for 25 a pop. They are awesome very full with very long hackles and a good mix of wide and skinny. Slice the saddle in half lenght wise and die em up thats only 12 bucks a color and you will get tons of flies out of a half saddle:kewl:

Thank you! So how many are going to the show next weekend?

I'll be there thinking 9am or so. Bro I meant to tell you the other day when you called. The thing with the flatwings is yeah they look and fish awesome! But to run out and dump dough on 4 or 5 saddle hackle capes grade one or gold or whatever gets spendy quick figure 50-60 per. Pick up materials a bit at a time some here some there, oh tie up some orange ruthless we're going to need them :kewl:

Show me the light Vic. See you and Scott on Sat.

sure thing, Im meeting him for 7am breakfast then we're heading up to the show.

For flatwings, check out the lower grades. They may do what you want better then the high grades while costing a lot less.

Lower grades will generally have wider feathers. Often the silver and gold grades (depending on the type of feather) have very thin feather, sometimes too thin for saltwater for most flatwings.

Some of the best flatwing saddles I've ever seen were "pro" grade from Whiting, which is bottom of the barrel. Unfortunately I think they've done away with that grade on some styles of feather.

At the show the profesional tiers really picked apart their hackle to get the best feathers. I learned a lot about how to choose which feather for what type of fly.

Good thing to learn, same goes for bucktail.

Good advice above. Bucktail closer to the base of the tail will be more hollow. It'll flare better when you crank down on the thread, for muddler-style deerhair heads. I like tying those for night, high-riding patterns that push water. That hair also has better buoyancy. The hair towards the tip of the tail is more solid, longer and less buoyant. Don't overlook the hair on the back side (non-white) of the tail. On yellow or olive bucktails, that hair is great for the top (dorsal surface) of the fly.
Check through your hackles the same way. As you become familiar with different patterns, you'll see that not all hackle, as with bucktail, is equal. Each feather will whisper to you it's ideal use. Especially if you spend enough late-nights in the surf.

That's a relief to read. I thought it was just the voices in my head.:conf:

Agree on all the above. Even things as mundane as strung saddles normally have a wide variety of feathers that can be used for many different flies.