When speaking about genetic hackle, many different topics come to mind. With all of the nuances/intricacies aside, color stands out as one of the more appealing topics to discuss. At least among today’s fly tiers.
Cree, Rusty Dun, Honey Dun, Dun Cree and the large family of variants are all the buzz and for good reason! The colors those hackles present in our flies are stunning! Today, however, I want to discuss a color that doesn’t get much hype and is rarely even talked about let alone in demand. That color is badger.
The late great fly tying legend, Eric Leiser simply describes it in his iconic, classic book Fly Tying Materials p.97, “ BADGER- Any neck (or saddle Mr.Leiser) in shades of white to dark cream having a black center stripe throughout all the hackles on the cape.” This black center stripe is also called the “center list”. Dust off the badger cape in your collection and have a closer look. This is where it starts to get interesting so hold on to your britches!
When fly tiers think of badger, usually only a few colors come to mind with silver & golden being the main players. Silver covers the large spectrum of, as Mr. Leiser put it, “white to dark cream”. Golden badger is just that, golden, and is simply darker in hue in comparison to silver & and can be a very light colored yellow to yellowish-brown, to a deep ochre yellow/gold. One thing we can be certain of is that badger hackle of any shade is rad!
How does it apply to our fly tying? Well, many classic dry flies, streamers, and wets do call for a badger hackle. A few dry flies come to mind, the Conover, a favorite of Mary Dette, requires a golden badger hackle on the collar-wingless. I recall a day on the Lower Provo river with a friend, Adam Dominguez, during the late summer of 2019. We were fishing the lower canyon near Bridal Veil Park when nothing in our fly boxes was working. Feeling inspired, or desperate, I decided to tie on a rather unusual dry fly that was sitting in the top left of my box. A large, sz.12 wingless dry fly with cream barbs for the tail, a mixed muskrat and red wool dubbed body, and a large golden badger hackle on the collar. The next few hours were pure magic as we caught fish after fish on the Conover.
Another pattern that has produced well for me all over the West is the classic streamer pattern, the spruce fly. Originally tied for sea-run cutthroat, this streamer made its way over to the Rocky Mtn range from the West Coast and was popularized by Dan Bailey of Livingston, MT. Silver Badger creates the wing on one of the most beautiful and recognizable classic streamers of all time. I remember spending a few days on the Big Hole river as a sixteen year old kid with my Uncle David Lloyd. We arrived just after the hatch of pteronarcys stoneflies and the fish were gorged on them making fishing AND catching difficult. Uncle Dave finally tied on the spruce as a last resort while fishing an indicator nymph rig. The rest of the afternoon I watched Uncle Dave catch rainbows and browns along the bank near Melrose, MT; on the magic spruce fly dead drifted through the seams and runs of the Big Hole. There’s just something about the light spruce (silver badger) and the dark spruce (golden badger or furnace) in our waters. (See Bates-Tying & Fishing Streamers)
Recently I was fortunate to attend the East Idaho Fly Tying Expo here in Idaho Falls, ID. It’s always humbling sitting down and rubbing shoulders with the legends of our sport in this area. One of those legends is a man by the name of Jay Buchner from Jackson,WY. Much to my surprise and amazement, Jay was tying spruce flies in the matuku style. Each one was masterfully tied by him utilizing silver badger Chinese rooster capes from old Wapsi stock. Just.Wow. A buddy, Jim Malan & I picked up a few tips from Jay regarding the mounting of the wing on the matuku style. Thank you, Jay! More about Jay Buchner and his contributions to fly tying another time.
Now, let’s go a little deeper into a few other options in the badger family. The first one that comes to mind is what we fly tiers call “speckled badger”.
*Speckled Badger is similar to golden badger with yellows and golds along the outer list, but, with tiny black speckles in the mix. When wrapped on a hook, these little color breaks/speckles are pure magic on a dry fly or floating emerger. If there was an ideal hackle besides dun for blue winged olives & baetis, speckled badger is right up there and the same would apply for caddis, midges, and stoneflies. It’s fantastic stuff!
*Dun Badger is an excellent choice for mayflies. A dun (gray) center list distinctly separates this type of badger from other members of the family. We find dun in nature’s buffet of water born insects and outer list of dun badger is similar to what you would find in silver badger sans the black center list as previously mentioned. Various shades of light, light, yellow to cream to white w/a dun center. Again, fantastic stuff!
Now that we’ve covered badgers, there is one more important point to make regarding the “why” in our application of this overlooked hackle variety-illusion. The black or dun center list of a badger hackle when wrapped creates a contrast that suggests the thorax in a dry or wet fly and we call this result a “false thorax”. To the fly tier’s eye, the false thorax is very visible and we can only assume that the trout are also keen to it as well. As with the Conover pattern mentioned above, the false thorax is easily identifiable and visible so I’d say Mary Dette was in her right mind when creating this iconic dry fly in our history. Thank you, Mary!
Now go badger some fish!
Respectfully,
Grant Bench
Borealis Hackle