Understanding Whiting Farms and Hebert-Miner Hackle Colors
I get a lot of color questions regarding
Whiting Hackle so I thought it would be good to explain the different colors. Because most of the questions are for the
Hebert Line let's begin there and we will start at the light side of the color spectrum.
Cream
On the surface pretty much self-explanatory but let’s delve in a little deeper, it is a much more complex color assignation then what it appears than the name implies. On one side of the Cream spectrum is white or off white. Both of these colors are quite hard to come by. There are two reasons for this. First, being that most of these hackles end up in the dye bath. Second, is feather quality. Pure white can be a bit soft for dry fly purposes is rarely adequate for dry fly applications. The next shades that fall under the “cream” label come into play are dirty white and ghost barred
White
The color dirty white can be is best described as white with a "dirty" overcast, generally a faint dunnish ginger or brown. Ghost barred white is basically white with the faint dunnish color barring on the feather. Both of these shades begin are the first steps on the road to pale watery dun, light grey dun, and light ginger dun. Next is the "Classic" cream color, white with a light ginger overcast. Anyone who has grown up on a dairy farm and is familiar with fresh milk knows exactly what I'm talking about: After that fresh milk has a chance to set the color of the cream that rises to the top of fresh milk. That pale yellowy golden color that's the "classic color cream. Within the cream color category the light ginger overcast color can get stronger until it is on the threshold of light ginger and the beginning of the color ginger.
Light Ginger
This color is actually difficult to grow; not that it's a rare color, just a bit difficult to breed for consistency. The color is best described as a light yellow gold with a faint touch of brown, as the color darkens it gets closer to medium ginger.
Medium Ginger
This color actually has wide ranges from a pale gold tinted with brown to a deep rich amber that is the beginning of light brown.
Browns
Brown in the hackle world has a definite "red" tone; not the "red" found in such colors as cardinal, scarlet or blood but more towards auburn red hair. The Rhode Island Red chicken is a good example of red in terms of hackle color. This color starts where light brown ends and ends where Coachman brown begins.
Generally, you are looking at should expect a color that is brown with a red overcast. Actually many prefer medium brown with a distinct red overcast for tying the famous Coachman series of flies.
Light Brown
Sometimes the line between light brown and medium ginger is quite blurred. The best way to describe light brown is “a dark rich amber with a ‘red’ overtone.” As this color deepens and darkens it moves towards medium brown
Medium Brown
When you think of the color brown and compare it to what is considered "brown" in the hackle world you can see there is a discrepancy.
It must be noted that medium brown is sometimes dyed; not very often but at times it is and is hard to tell from non dyed hackle. The dyed brown will tie a bit darker as both sides of the feather are close to the same color. Natural brown will often have the side closest to the skin or the inside face of the feather a lighter shade than the outside face of the feather.
Coachman Brown
This color is a dark red brown to almost black. As a rule natural Coachman brown feathers are always "soft". For whatever reason natural dark colored feathers are rarely suited for dry flies as their feather barbs just aren't stiff. Finding mid level to high quality natural Coachman brown dry fly hackle is very rare. There are some out there but they are few and far between. Hebert-Miner Coachman brown is almost always dyed.
Black is... well, black. Most of the time this color is black dry fly quality feathers are dyed. There are occasions that a few natural black hackles come along and the quality is surprisingly good but not good enough for the higher grades. Most natural black feathers have an iridescent green sheen to them. This is readily apparent in hen hackle, both in larger neck feathers and in saddle feathers.
Grizzly
Grizzly (or “grizzled”) feathers are both black and white. Generally, this characterized by black barring over white but sometimes by white barring over black. The classic grizzly is finds has the black and white barring fairly evenly spaced and the colors are distinct. The barring is in the shape of chevrons or the shape of a "V", like a sergeant’s stripes.
Some grizzly will have a imperfect barring; either the barring goes straight across the feather or is a bit staggered from one side of the stem to the other. There is light grizzly and dark grizzly. Light grizzly is predominantly white with smallish black barring, and dark grizzly is mainly black with smallish white barring.
Grizzly Variant
Grizzly Variant is grizzly with some other colors feathers intermixed with the most common colors being brown, furnace and badger. The same color variations found in grizzly can be found in gizzly variant.
This color consists of two colors. The center stripe or list is black and the outer color may range from a silver white to a light golden ginger. Often the feathers will have black tips as well.
Silver Badger
Silver white tipped feathers with a black list with the white ranging from pure white to a dark cream color. As noted above the outer tips of the feathers may be black.
Golden Badger
A light ginger feather with a black list with the very outer tips sometimes being black.
Speckled Badger
The outer part of the feather may range from white to the darkest light ginger with the list being black. The speckling can be either in the black list or in the colors found on the outer parts of the feather. The more unusual color variation is a black feather with white to gold dusting or frosting on the outer portions of the feather. The very outer tips may be black.
Furnace
Furnace is very similar to badger except that the outer portion of the feather will range from Medium Ginger to a dark Medium Brown with a black center list. These feathers may also be tipped in black on the outer edges. Feathers that are "red" and have the very outer tips black are often referred to as "Coch-Y-Bondou" and the feathers that have a medium ginger outer color are often referred to as "Greenwells Hackle".
(With Hebert sometimes Barred Ginger is used as a catch all for all Barred Gingers. The colors will be explained below.)
Medium Barred Ginger
This color ranges from a white feather barred with the lightest medium ginger to a lightest medium ginger barred with the darkest medium ginger. As a general rule this color is best described as a cream colored hackle barred with medium ginger. The barring can range from mostly light color with small ginger barring to a ginger feather with small cream barring and all points in between.
Dark Barred Ginger
This is one of the most sought after colors. Generally these feathers have a light to medium ginger color barred with a dark ginger to "red" color sometimes a Coachman brown. As with most barred feathers there is quite a lot of variation here, with sometimes the lighter color being dominant or the darker color being dominant. Another color variation found in this color is that the light fades into the darker color only to repeat the color cycle repeatedly to the end of the feather. This color can be very close to cree. As a matter of fact the best way to achieve a color substitution for cree is by using a dark barred ginger hackle and blending it with a grizzly hackle as you would do when combining brown and grizzly hackle when tying the Adams.
This is one of the "Holy Grails" of hackle and a very beautiful feather. It is best described as a grizzly hackle that has ginger in between the black and white colors. This hackle color is very rare and can command very high prices. This color shows up at best 1 in 1000 birds produced. There are many variations of cree, pale, light medium and dark. Pale cree is black and white barring with cream in the middle. Light cree would have the white and Black barring with a light ginger in between the two colors.
Medium cree would have the medium ginger between the barring, and dark cree would have a dark ginger between the black and white. As with grizzly hackle the barring can be imperfect. Adding the third color to the changes the barring dynamic.
As with grizzly there can be a dominant color or they can be fairly evenly distributed with the difference being the added third color. Sometimes the ginger barring is thin but the black and white are about even, then again sometimes ginger is the dominant color with the black and white barring being equal in size. As with dark barred ginger, sometimes the ginger fades from the white to black going from a cream to a dark red ginger as it gets to the black. When you combine this color characteristic with chevron barring the hackle is sometimes called “Classic Cree," a very, very rare hackle.
The Duns
One of most asked question is "What is dun"? There is an old saying that best sums up this color: "Dun is the Mouse". Dun is a smoky brown grey. That being said there are a lot of dun colors and they will each be discussed but first a little history.
It wasn't that long ago that natural dun was the most sought after and coveted of all hackle colors. This is not difficult to comprehend if you first understand a couple of things: first, the thing you have to take into consideration is the fact that at least half of all trout patterns call for some sort of dun; second there simply wasn't much if any hackle grown for fly tying let alone bred for natural dun. Most hackle came from barnyards in Asia or India with Indian hackle being the most prevalent.
Things changed when Buck Metz got hold of the Harry Darbee strain of birds and started breeding birds to mass-produce fly tying hackle for the general fly tying public. Birds were finally bred to produce natural dun on a large scale. Eventually the Metz flock was bought by Umpqua Feather Merchants.
Later, in 1997, Dr. Tom Whiting bought the Hebert-Miner flock from Ted Hebert. These birds were bred from the same famed Darbee line, a lineage that had its roots deep in the Catskill lore of Rube Cross, the Dettes and the Darbees. There has been nothing but improvement from Whiting Farms handling of this line, in terms of both volume and hackle quality. Today the Whiting line produces a vast array of dun colors available for the general tying public.
As before, we’ll begin the discussion with the lightest color in the dun spectrum and work towards the darker colors. It should also be noted that these colors intersect and split off to multiple colors. These intersections and splits will be discussed as well. All colors are natural unless noted.
Pale Watery Dun
This is best described as a dirty white color with a distinct ginger/brown/tan/grey dun overcast. This color starts on the grey side of cream and ends at the doorsteps of light grey dun and light tan dun. This color may also have some barring; usually a light ginger dun barring.
Light Ginger Dun
This is the convergence or blending of light grey dun with light ginger. It is a beautiful color that is suitable for sulphurs, PMD's and Light Cahills. Sometimes this color has badger like markings with the list ranging from a light grey/tan dun to the darkest of medium grey dun with light ginger dun outer colors.
Light Grey Dun
This hackle is a dirty white feather overcast with a greyish dun. Often the dun color has a tan hue to it as well but most often has a general grey tone. Other variations include: pale watery dun with medium grey barring, Pale watery dun with a medium grey list or light grey dun with medium to darkish grey speckles (fairly rare) This color ranges from the dark side of pale watery dun to the light end of medium grey dun and can be on the outer fringes of light tan dun.
Light Tan Dun
Combine the color tan with a little grey and you get light tan dun. This color is sometimes found with badger like markings with the list being a darker shade of tan dun then the outer tan dun. Light tan dun merges into medium brown dun and is on the fringes of light ginger dun, light grey dun, pale watery dun, medium grey dun and brown grey dun. Darker light tan dun can be suitable for the famed Light Hendrickson fly.
Medium Brown Dun
This is a dark tan/light brown color with little grey blended in. The overall color impression is a smoky dark, tannish brown. This color ranges from the darkest light tan dun to the lightest of dark brown dun. The color also parallels medium grey dun, brown grey dun and rusty dun. The lighter side of this color is also good for the famed Light Hendrickson fly.
Brown Grey Dun
This is a grey hackle with a brown overcast. The color can range from the light side of medium grey dun and medium brown dun and borders both dark grey dun and dark brown dun. Brown Grey Dun could be best described as the center point of the dun color wheel.
Medium Grey Dun
The quintessential dun color, these feathers have an overall grey tone that is neither too light nor too dark. Typically, medium grey dun isn't actually grey but has the appearance or tone of being grey. On closer inspection, brown, tan and ginger colors are also apparent but the overall impression is grey. There may be darker overtones highlighting the medium grey and sometimes darker speckling as well. The range of color borders light grey dun to dark grey dun, but also borders medium brown dun, dark brown dun, brown grey dun and even light tan dun. Due to the high demand for this color it is often dyed. As a credit to Whiting Farms there are times when you cannot tell the difference between dyed and natural medium grey dun.
Dark Grey Dun
This color ranges from the darkest medium grey dun to almost black. Generally this color has an overall grey tone but on closer inspection you can see dark tans and browns as well. Another characteristic is a dark bronze flecking over a darkish grey dun base color. This color blends into medium grey dun, brown grey dun, dark brown dun and black. This color is often produced by dyeing. As with the dyed medium grey dun it is often hard to differentiate between natural and dyed feathers, and this is even more true with dark grey dun.
Dark Brown Dun
Actually this is a fairly complex color grouping. The classic dark brown dun is a dark chocolate dun. From there the color ranges to almost black to almost classic rusty dun being a little too rust colored to medium brown dun. Dark brown dun is one of the more overlooked colors.
Dun Grizzly
Actually this is a wide ranging set of colors. Base color may range from an off white to a dark medium grey dun over which a barring may range from light tan dun to the darkest duns. Typically the color falls into a light grey dun base with medium to dark grey dun barring. This is a great color to add some “bugginess” to your flies that typically call for “dun.”.
Rusty Dun
This color is similar to furnace with the exception that the center list is Dun. The color of the list will range from light grey dun to dark grey dun, and the outer color may range from a light golden reddish ginger to a deep red brown. This color is beautiful and will tie up very buggy looking flies.
Honey Dun
One could say that this is the other end of the rusty dun color spectrum. Honey dun has a center list that ranges from a dirty white pale watery dun to dark grey dun with the outer color ranging from the darkest cream to deep red ginger.
Dun Badger
This color parallels speckled badger in a lot of ways. Dun badger has a dark grey or dark brown dun center list with silver to deep golden outer color. Often the outer color is a golden ginger dun color with the list on the lighter side of the dark duns.
Dark Brassy Dun
This color is a dyed color and shows as a chocolate dunwith dark brassy overtones. This is a beautiful color.
Medium Cahill Dun
Another dyed color showing as a medium grey dun with brassy gold overtones: a spectacular dun color.
