Material Mondays ia Back!!! Indian Crow, Cotinga, Toucan

Hook/ Material Suppliers:
Anadromous Fly Co
Partridge-of-Redditch.co.uk
Spritehooks.co.uk
Flyfishfood.com
Flytying.fish (also sells on ebay)
Feathersmc.com
Malindas Fly Shop, Altmar NY [phone]
All Season Sports in Pulaski NY
Angry Rooster Fly Company
Also Ebay and Etsy searches will usually turn up good results as well
Hand made hooks: look them up on facebook
Lars Møller
Byron Bjerke
Graham Culley
Connor Mccracken
Cosimo Raia
Klaus-Peter Woggon
Garren Wood

[@AstroProductReviews]

Another great video! Great advice for beginners; I especially like the links & resources you provided - Thanks!

[@user-nh6dz5qi9v]

Thanks Rich! Nice to see the real feathers. Great models for subs!

[@augustonthefly]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

[@kenb4685]

Gidday Rich. These feathers are a bit out of my league, great lot of interesting info. Thankyou.

[@flytyingwithrichlamonte]

The idea was more to show the substitutes that are used. Im going to make a little addition to the jock Scott video and explain a little more. The real thing is beautiful but the use of substitutes is strongly encouraged.

[@timothymcdougald21]

That was an informative video. Thanks for doing it. What is the price range on the indian crow subs?

[@flytyingwithrichlamonte]

David Kerr charges £15 for 20 and Ryan Houston charges £20 for 10.

[@jlsmithii]

At the risk of being crucified, I have to ask "Why?" I ask this meaning no disrespect, I just want to understand the fascination with these feathers. As a fly tier myself, I can say, the fish certainly don't care if those feathers are even present on the fly (and many "fishing flies" omit them all together). From an art form, the substitutes can readily be had, are much more economical and more importantly are much more conservation minded. I don't understand the "we need to preserve the history" argument. Few tie with silk gut anymore. Substitutes are acceptable and a sign of progress. May be hyperbole, but by that logic we should give up modern medicine and electricity to respect history. No one in their right mind would agree to that. Ease of tying with the material doesn't hold water either. Many of the feathers are more difficult to use than their substitutes and if the substitute is more difficult, then that is just a new challenge to tying the fly. I also don't buy the argument that these feathers can be sourced. At such outrageous prices, poaching and illegal harvesting of these animals is economically encouraged. The most recent black mark on our society of an "Asperger" flute playing thief clearly demonstrates that the provenience of these feathers can not accurately be traced even by the best intentioned fly tier (and the greed of others, dare I suggest, often outweighs those of us who are more conservation minded). I will also point out the irony that the species these flies are designed to catch has had its range diminished due to lack of wise conservation and environmental stewardship. Atlantic salmon used to run as far south as the Potomac. Now, no fishable runs exist in the United States. As sportsmen, we can't really claim to be about the environment as it applies to salmon while out the other side of our mouths we are engaging in practices that endanger other species. Sorry for hijacking your enjoyable and informative channel with this. Not sure if there is another venue for this, but dare I suggest, perhaps we need to take leadership on this and change the conversation to acceptable use of substitutes and leave these rarer feathers where they belong - on living birds and the history pages of a ne'er do well attorney with access to Victorian England's millinery business.

[@flytyingwithrichlamonte]

Ou are not wrong in your reply. This video was meant to show the substitutes for the rare feathers. Not to encourage the use of the hard to obtain origonal feathers of the past. Yes the rare feathers can be sourced, the prices are outrageous, and yes poaching is a real issue. However I do encourage the use of substitutes as that has become very acceptable and the substitutes look just as good as the real thing. The point was to show that subs are easily obtained at a fraction of the cost.
Obviously I do have some of these feathers but they are ones that basically sit in a drawer and do not get used much except for demonstrations. While I do on rare occasion tie with the real feather, those flies are not sold and will stay in my collection. Fishing flies are all dressed with subs, flies for sale are dressed with subs.

[@jlsmithii]

@@flytyingwithrichlamonte Thanks for reply. Like I said, not really looking to stir anything up. Just looking to understand. Thanks for the great information and tricks used in tying these flies. Always learn something from your videos. Keep up the great work

[@davidkerr2285]

Very interesting bud , but my subs are Ringneck pheasant , your getting mixed up with my COTR subs that are magpie .

[@flytyingwithrichlamonte]

Ah darn. Thank you for clarifying. I knew the cotr subs were, don't know why I thought they were different. Still beautiful subs. Now to correct that somehow?

[@davidkerr2285]

Well when I was talking to you alot about trying different feathers etc it was when you really were very sick, so I think that's were the confusion came from. Although I need to send you some more recent subs 👍

[@bouhunter6176]

How do you store these small feathers and how are they attached to those small cards? Thanks love your videos.

[@flytyingwithrichlamonte]

I store the feathers on the cards in a bag the same size as the cards. I just keep them in an old cigar box with only the special feathers. The feathers are held to the card by a piece of scotch tape. Nothing fancy. Just tape them as close to the base of the feather as possible so not to damage any of the feather itself.