Fly hackle?

I don’t know that I agree with that. At least in my years of experience, it depends on conditions and many other factors.

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Kind of an interesting discussion of the mystery of the sakasa kebari from almost exactly 2 years ago, March 9, 2018 blog post. On the - Sakanakokoro blog. [ 魚ココロ, Fish heart, I guess]

Underwater feather (wing) movement is the life |Sakasa kebari
水中での羽の動きこそが命|逆さ毛鉤

Sure much of the digital translation is weird -
kebari will show as “burr hairs” or “fly hooks” ;
kebari wrapping/winding as “hair wrapping” ;
Sakasa kebari as “inverted fly”;
hair of the fly = the kebari’s minoge, iow the kebari’s feathers / hackle ,
and a few directions of feather orientation appears to be translated inverted from what was originally written;
Soluxe color is “thorax color”;
to site a few examples.

[note - Google translate gets confused by kebari written in these text fonts : 毛ばり(hair) or 毛バリ (hair burr), 毛針 (bristle), But will usually translate kebari written in this text, 毛鉤, as “fly” . Not always, sometimes some really strange translations for any of them]

What I found most interesting in this blog post is that while here in the USA, many people have the idea that a sakasa kebari is the tenkara fly.

Yet reading this blog post and it’s comments. One would think that only 2 years ago, tenkara fishing with a sakasa kebari, seemed to be a new idea. Something that seemed weird, out of main stream practice. But something worth giving a try.

otoh - I am suspicious the blog author [ リコプテラさん Rikoputera-san, I think] may have much experience with sakasa kebari, and is just writing from a point of view as if he were unfamiliar with them. As a writing method to make the readers think about sakasa kebari properties in a new way. Something just for fun. :thinking:

The statement - “It is not an exaggeration to say that there are as many types of flies (kebari) as the number of Tenkara masters.” Is probably true. 10 Colors Tenkara in practice. :wink: Maybe that also qualifies as a tenkara proverb, too.

After illustrating how he ties a weighted sakasa kebari -

The surprising statement from only 2 years ago =
The sakasa kebari has such a strange shape I’ve wondered can I really catch (fish-with) with this kebari.

https://www.sakanakokoro.com/2018/03/09/ Only the movement of the wings in water is life | sakasa kebari

The statement just below the last photos of testing kebari appearance in beakers of water -
“I’ll try the same with the fly, but the wings don’t move as much as the inverted fly.”
Should read as - I’ll try the same (test) with the junke kebairi ( aka jun kebari, feathers pointing to hook bend ), but the wings don’t move as much as the sakasa kebari".

Anyway, I found the post, and the comments, interesting. Whether sakasa kebari has more reliable hookups, less damage to the hackle or more. Compared to other hackle shaped kebari. Versatile by allowing use of long or short barbed feathers, wrapped on sparse or thick. One comment even found the first time he saw a sakasa kebari it made him feel uncomfortable or strange.

One tip to help remember which kebari shape, jun kebari or futsū kebari, is the opposite of a sakasa kebari hackle orientation. – Is just remember that an Elk Hair Cadiz is a type of jun kebari. [ 順毛鉤] . If the hackle points in the same direction as the elk hair, toward the hook bend, it’s a jun kebari.

Well, if knowing that sort of thing appeals to you to recall it maybe it’s worth remembering. :wink:
However, the two names seem to be used casually, or interchangeably. For years google pretty reliably would translate jun kebari 順毛鉤, as “order fly” but has recently started sometimes translating it as “straight fly”.

A Ken bane kebari / sword feather kebari - would be a futsū kebari , 普通毛鉤, type. The alula feather bards standing out ~ 90˚ from the hook shank.
Actually, I think it may be more accurate to say the feather barbs of the hackle on a futsū kebari just point in what ever random direction they point as the feather stem is wrapped round the hook shank. No effort to push them forward or backward with later thread wraps. Or only a little effort.

Which is why I kind of like them. Kind of a ruffed up looking kebari. That I think sometimes is appealing to fish. Wounded prey is generally easier to catch. Less energy expended to capture a snack.

However, sometime fish aren’t hungry, but you still want to catch a fish. That’s the special purpose of the sakasaka kebari, to trigger their natural instinct to chase after food with sasoi movement. Even if they are not hungry. As Peter Allison, former African safari guide, wrote in his book. Food runs. Whatever you do, don’t run. :open_mouth:

You can also check Todoroki-san’s blog post from about four years ago.

https://kebariandfly.wordpress.com/2016/04/05/sakasa kebari ・jun kebari ・futsū kebari

A little Japanese language trivia:
The kanji for the word color is 色 (iro) . An odd kanji that just signals that the previous sound is to be repeated, is 々. That google will often translate as “each” or “people”.
Anyway, 色々 ( = iroiro). But it means “various” , This kind of like the 10 Colors idea.

Thus, 色々な毛鉤を [iroirona kebari o] = “Various flies(kebari)”. Or “A wide variety of flies (kebari)”.
Google will tell you that 色色 [iroiro] = various. But write 色色な毛鉤を [ iroirona kebari o] = “A colorful kebari”. Not quite the same meaning as 色々.

It’s kind of a common practice to write a word 2x to mean a lot of something. 山 [yama] mountain. 山々[yamayama] mountains, many mountains of…?

Oh, and there is also a borrowed English word for - color. カラー [ karā ] .
Never boring learning to read a bit of Japanese language. Always some surprise, But it still seems a lot more straight forward than trying to learn Chinese. However, a lot of the kanji are shared and mean the same thing.

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@dwalker

Not sure if this is a sound theory, and to be truthful I am not the best at digging into history or reading between the lines.

Could the sakasa kebari have been chosen to be the poster child for tenkara in the west because it is visibility different from western patterns. As in a marketing distinction / device on how tenkara is a different form of fly fishing , it is a better vehicle of difference than lets say a jun pattern. It does not even matter if sakasa is widely used in history, but rather the importance of what it represents which is wildly different…just as tenkara is to western fly fishing, sakasa is to western fly patterns.

There is something contrary and whimsical about the sakasa that really does not read as much as an insect as other patterns. So much not match the hatch that it is a fantastic choice as a poster child.

It is also interesting that the sakasa has naturally fallen from favor in my flybox. It is not that I do not use it, but the utility is not as important to me compared to the other forms. I am mostly tuning my fly box to what works for me in fishing and tenkara teniques and ignoring textbook fly form.

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Probably a little bit of all those observations. Sakasa is an exotic sounding word to English speakers. Similar to the names of many Greek dishes: Baklava, Moussaka, Souvlaki, Saganaki, and the one no one seems to know how to correctly pronounce or pronounces differently - Gyro. The 10 Colors name.

And like tenkara itself - sakasa kebari are a bit different from most other types of flies. As well as being an effective fly. It’s special niche application is enticing a hit by movement that triggers the fish’s instinct to attack certain shapes that move with the correct rhythm. The so-called tenkara sasoi fishing method. [ テンカラ誘い釣り方法 ]. Sasoi is not exclusive to tenkara or fresh water fishing. Sasoi techniques are also used in sea fishing.

I recall seeing a film showing how fish reacted to movement of a black rectangle. I think the video was made by Paul Gaskell. Their most aggressive response was when the black bar moved parallel to the long axis of the rectangle. [ I wonder if the video is online somewhere?]

Anyway, a demonstration of tying -
a soft hackle sakasa kebari and a stiff hackle futsū kebari.
By - Fisherman’s Spoon.
[ テンカラ毛鉤の作り方, Tenkara kebari no tsukurikata, tenkara kebari how to make]

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Keiryū (mountain stream) tenkara fishing shikake (trick, rigging)
Paragraph #5 has about the most straight forward, simplified description of the 3 basic forms of hackle that I have seen. Though I have a few different opinions about some of the writer’s other conclusion.

https://www.mukachi.com/mt-fish-tenkara/ Mountain stream tenkara fishing’s shikake

Futsū kebari [ 普通毛鉤(ふつうけばり)] is translated as “Ordinary fly” - the basic / common form of fly.
Jun kebari [ 順毛鉤(じゅんけばり)] is surprisingly translated as " Jun kebari", but more frequently is translated as “Order fly”. The hackle is tilted obliquely backward.
Sakasa kebari [ 逆さ毛鉤(さかさけばり)] is translated as “Inverted fly”. The hackle slants forward.

One method I use to remember which ( Futsū or Jun) hackle orientation is the opposite of a sakasa kebari:.
Sakasa has 6 letters. 6/2 = 3. Jun has 3 letters. Thinking - Sakasa 6 / (which of the other 2 names) = the opposite hackle orientation. Ah, it’s just the way my brain works. :roll_eyes:

Don’t have the color of hackle you’d like to use? You can dye it.
I’ve seen several blogs wherein people dyed hackle using various kinds of permanent ink. More frequently black or other dark color, but sometimes a bright color.

I’ve not tried it myself, though I have some Noodler’s Ink that has interesting colors, is rated as permanent, water proof, forgery proof, ink. Some is also UV florescent. But thus far I have only used it a couple of times to dye some white tying thread to try a unique color. The color seemed to not fade, until I lost the fly.

This video from Fisherman’s Spoon is a little different approach. He uses hair dye. [something he is familiar with because he is or was a hairdresser]

ハックルをヘアマニキュアで染める [ Dye the hackle with a hair manicure ]

Hackle as therapy / rehab! Not a reason for tying kebari that I had thought about putting on the list.
But in this example, Fisherman’s Spoon’s tenkara hobby was a welcome help following a stroke about 14 months ago. No worries, his story is told in English.

I understand the challenges he faces in a limited way. 24 years ago my youngest brother had a stroke and was about 80% parallelized on his left side the last eight years of his life.

Off topic.
I happened to look at the latest Oni-tenkara blog post (3/5/2020) earlier today and was surprised to see a picture of Chris Lynch. I don’t recall if Chris went to Okinawa or Korea, but he recently found his way to Oni’s door.

http://www.oni-tenkara.com/oni-blog/10513.html

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Dry Fly Hackle Explained with Kelly Galloup

This video was uploaded three days ago, March 13th.
What I found most interesting about it, wasn’t so much the descriptions of the different grades of hackle, but his statement that due to genetic modification hackle today is of a higher quality than only ten years ago. Feather size and color more uniform, some birds even created with longer legs so they can grow longer saddle hackle so the ends do not drag on the ground and damage the feathers.

He only mentions hen hackle, soft hackle, in passing. I’ve become a fan of badger hackle, especially after walking into Cabela’s a couple of years ago and finding a package of them marked down to half price.

Anyway, although hen hackle wasn’t discussed much, in the suggested videos I saw this kebari tying video that was posted about 3 weeks ago by the Dragontail Tenkara-guy. Maybe you will find it entertaining, too.

Cherry Cordial Kebari Tenkara Fly Tying

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As usual, thanks for sharing @dwalker.

Without being too pedantic, I would just point out that chickens have not been genetically modified. They have used traditional breeding methods, selecting for specific traits (i.e. genes) that produce specific hackle. For some reason (I don’t know why), but hen hackle has only improved as a byproduct of breeding cock hackle.

Well I would view breeding as the old school, traditional, method of genetic modification. Gene splicing in a lab being the new school method. That is producing many benefits and also many perils.

One example - GE, genetically engineered - fish being one controversy. Mislabeling of fish sold for consumption is very high percentage, with GE salmon often labeled as wild caught. And GE fish, having low resistance to disease may escape fish farms, and cross breed with wild fish, endangering the robustness of wild fish.

https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/309/ge-fish/about-ge-fish

Hackle development is an interesting story:

“Whiting Farms celebrated 25 years of genetic hackle production in 2015. To think it was just over 25 years ago when Tom Whiting hatched his first batch of Hoffman Hackle eggs. Look how far genetic hackle has come in that time.”

https://whitingfarms.com/whiting-farms-story/

Tom Whiting Designs the Perfect Feathers for Fly Tying

Meet the geneticist behind the most sought-after feathers for fly-tiers around the world

"“Even if this rooster doesn’t exist,” he decided, “I can build it.” Chickens, Whiting likes to say, are “genetically plastic.” …

“Today, Whiting is the No. 1 provider of feathers for fly patterns worldwide. Nearly every tackle shop in the U.S. stocks Whiting pelts; they’re shipped to 40 countries; and three out of four commercial fly-tying operations uses Whiting feathers. By one estimate, Whiting controls 80 percent of the feathers in the world tying market…”

https://www.fieldandstream.com/perfect-feathers-for-fly-tiers/

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Use oversized hackle for small Soft Hackle flies.

Using Large Feathers on Small Soft Hackles

The same method works fine (well, ok) for tying a sakasa kebari, if before tying on the feather you make a thread or (thread & dubbing) ball near the hook eye, as demonstrated below, that will force the feather barbs to open into the forward facing cone shape when the feather is tightened down behind the ball.

【Honda 釣り倶楽部】毛バリ作り入門講座 CHAPTER 01 ヘッドを作る

[Honda must have cut their budget for lighting before they filmed these videos :frowning: ]

【Honda 釣り倶楽部】毛バリ作り入門講座 CHAPTER 05 ミノ毛を巻く

ミノ毛 = 「ハックル」= hackle.

【Honda 釣り倶楽部】毛バリ作り入門講座 CHAPTER 06 ミノ毛に角度をつける

【Honda 釣り倶楽部】Honda Fishing Club.

Supplement
The movie explains “Fuji style sakasa-kebari” by Hiromichi Fuji

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Hackle Folding Tool

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Rockin!!!