I know there are other flies these hackles can be used for but, to my eye, these are just begging to get on the head of a salmon fly. OK, so the other types of flies, take two or four find the right sizes and curves to make a neat Matuka wing and with minimal fuss you have a sleek colourful attention-grabbing wing.

I take it the ‘streamer’ in the name has that style of tying in mind. The feathers in this cape vary in size and shape so it may take a little practice to match and size the feathers – not hard! These are not especially long feathers

Now, to the other feature of this cock saddle. Selective breeding tends to minimise the taper and exaggerate the length of cock saddle feathers – great for many tying purposes, not so great for others, including, in my opinion, palmering and folded head hackles. On a palmered body hackle I like to see the length of the barbs taper, lengthening towards the head. Tying folded collar hackle, I like to tie in by the tip, stroke the fibres back and wind the hackle forwards – and due to the taper of the feather, the barbs on each turn of hackle is longer than the one before. These are both formal things, things I prefer when I tie flies – no fish ever cared! This has relatively short feathers, definitely tapered. I can find a few feathers narrow enough for palmering or hackling large trout wets, but for the most part these are too large. The feathers are in very good condition, a few damaged feathers, but the tips and barbs are mostly excellent.

Dyed sunburst, the natural shading of the feathers means this is more orange in the middle, more yellow at the sides – looks beautiful and in effect I get a couple of capes in one. Very nice tying material!