Yes take the feather part off the stem and make a stack of them and then crag them so you can cut that end off and when you tie it like that the individual feather pieces are free to move.

You should not see the stem in the tails. Now I could be wrong and seeing something that is other than the stem, but that first pic in the middle top you see a stem like you just took the whole feather and tied in on the hook.

If you look at my Sig picture, you will see 3 different batches I tied in. The first one tied on was the Chart and then the Black and then the Chart again and there are no stems there. I have and still do a very few times leave the stem in, but it has to be so thin that it adds almost now stiffness to the tail. So 99% of the time I have no stems in my marabou tails.

Here is another picture of some marabou tail jigs and look very close and you don't see any stem there. You know hackle the stem stays in or the tail would be very short, too short. Well on marabou the feather most of the time is very wide so when you strip off the feathers and use just them it has more action and looks better too.

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