I buy Salt Water Neck Hackle and it's longer so wider too. It cost a bit more, but you still can do the same thing with the shorter neck hackle and you just don't get as many little "V"s.

The cheaper Saddle hackle from China is thinner than neck hackle and stiffer too, but the prize for fly tyers is not this stuff but the very thin saddle hackle from generic roosters and that is the most costly type and of course the capes from these birds are also very thin and mostly used fir dry flies. First all feathers are called hackle and they get that from if they wrap is around the hook for a collar or palmered it stands out. This is not for use on a tail.

So re-group here, neck hackle is softer than saddle and then you have the saddle, but different kinds and the strung is the low end kind and use that for woolly buggers and palmered on flies or jigs. Then dry fly quality saddle and cape hackle used for just flies pretty much. One other important kind of hackle is soft hackle which come for them sides of the cape and saddle on a rooster or it's from a hen if it's chicken. A lot of other kinds of birds as used a soft hackle on things like a spider type fly.

If your hackle is thin on width then it's probably saddle hackle and not the best for tails.

Sometimes for a color I can't get in the Salt Water Neck Hackle I will buy the shorter 3"-5" strung neck hackle, bit I prefer the longer 4"-6" Neck hackle. Hope that is more clear than mud, LOL!

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