The high cost of tying Atlantic Salmon Flies today?

I?ve seen very little literature on the actual cost of materials used in tying salmon flies from the ?Classic Era?. I?m sad to say, while I have spent a great deal of time and effort learning about and where to find the good stuff today. I?ve not been a good student or investigator when it comes to prices and availability of those scarce and unique feathers during the golden era.

I began tying flies in 1961. Living in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the time and I soon learned I was not residing in a fly tying Mecca. Being the child of an educator I was years away from having any disposable income that could be spent on such things anyway.

My first recollection of salmon fly materials was the Herter?s Catalog of the 1960?s. Contrary to popular belief it offered a limited selection of actual materials specific to tying full dress Classic Atlantic Salmon Flies. Sure he sold Jungle Cock and several species of exotic pheasants at reasonable prices ($5 or less) and had Florican Bustard 6 feathers for 72 cents, he even offered a Herter?s Blue Chatterer for 97 cents that was actually an Indian Roller but he carried little else. By the 1970?s he was down to a few exotic pheasants. Most of the literature in recent times pertaining to tying classic salmon lamented as to the high cost and scarcity and even the erroneous illegality of some things. In his 1978 classic book entitled Salmon Flies, that basically spawned the resurgence in tying salmon, Poul Jorgensen simply says materials like speckled Bustard, Indian Crow, Blue Chatterer and Toucan ?are no longer available?. Other authors picked up the mantra and echoed Poul but added, ?hard to get?, ?too expensive?, ?illegal? and my favorite ?unobtainium?. I can?t be positive but I don?t think that all these guys had our best interests at heart. What I think was actually the case was they knew there was a finite amount of the ?real stuff? available but as long as you and I weren?t looking for it there would be enough for them. Obviously some were willing to share their technical knowledge but few were willing share the key to the treasure chest.

Few major materials houses have offered much help save Hunters Angling supply during the 1990?s but their supply and scope was limited and I felt the prices were high on some things. There were several small shops that had a few things but for the most part if one wanted real crow or chatterer you either got it from Paul Schmookler from Massachusetts or Jamie Maxton Graham from Great Britain or people that got it from them. Early on in the 1990?s I was fortunate enough to witness a couple ?Treasure Boxes? sent around by Schmookler. They were a salmon fly dressers dream containing everything under the sun but I say witness because I couldn?t afford much of what was available.

There is one thing you can be sure of, living in the USA. If there is a demand there will surely be a supply. It may be expensive but you can get it. For example, initially after Poul?s book, Kori Bustard was for the most part not available but it wasn?t very long until there became a demand, followed by us paying ridiculous prices for essentially free feathers.

A non fly tyer on the West Coast named Kevin Schneider got involved by obtaining molted Kori Bustard feathers from a couple zoos and a private individual. Wayne Luallen was involved at the very beginning and as he says today, that was his darkest hour when he introduced Schneider to the salmon fly community. Wayne tells me the original idea was to make the feathers available at a reasonable cost in order to protect the birds in the wild. Apparently it didn?t take long for Schneider to see, people really wanted this stuff and there was some serious money to be made. The price went up immediately. Initially tiers on the west coast were able to buy Kori much cheaper than those ?Out East? but it didn?t take long for every one to be paying outrageous prices. Then Phil Castleman from the East Coast got into the act. He found a zoo in Louisiana that would send him their molted feathers and he in turn would send them a donation much like the setup Schneider had with his contacts. It wasn?t long before the price of Kori was in an upward spiral that would make an oil company blush.

I am quite familiar with the high price of Kori as I sold a great deal of it over the past ten years. In reality I brokered the stuff for Schneider by selling it for the price he chose for each feather and sending him all the money. How he really split the money with the zoos is unknown to me but subject to question. I know he didn?t split it with me. The price for one large feather was now hundreds of dollars. When I retired in 2000 my union purchased a very nice pair of Kori feathers for $500 as my retirement gift. Today, August 17, 2005 Castleman has the following on his materials website:

KORI (speckled) BUSTARD
A basic feather for classic salmon flies. Very rare and expensive. A fairly large bird from Africa and Arabia, the Kori Bustard is raised here in the USA, but has failed to bred. Molts twice a year and we have a wide selection of feathers on hand. Prices range from $50-$800.

I used to think it was greed that caused today?s prices to be absurd but after seeing Lt. Col. Reid?s fly tying materials order I may have been wrong. It appears as if it is tradition to charge outrageous sums for mere feathers because, I guess you can. Maybe it was the high price per salmon fly that drove poor (I use that term loosely) Mr Reid to tie his own flies as I have no idea what they cost back then. I do know that salmon fishing at that time was reserved as recreation for the wealthy but the way I read it Mr Reid spent what was equal to a years average wage (for Scotland at the time) for those additions to his tying kit. That, to me, is beyond rational thought.