How do you soften brittle quills?

[ezlehappy]

My latest project is trying to make a BWO using olive quills but I'm having trouble. The quills are too brittle to wrap around the size 16 hooks that I have,(let alone smaller ones).

Is this normal?

How do I make the quills work?

[LIV2FSH]

Ezlehappy,

You need to soak them in water or I've heard that a 50/50 solution of water and hair conditioner works well also, although I've never used anything but water. You need to soak them for at least a few hours. They do make excellent segmented bodies.

Later, Bruce

[Jason]

Instead of using regular quills, try AK Best's Porcupine Quills. They don't need soaking and seem to hold up quite nicely. No cracking or brittleness. And yes, you can get them in tons of colors, including shades of olive.

[ezlehappy]

where do you get these porcupine quills? Are the really from porcupines? :-)

[steeliesonafly]

The easiest way is spit! Just soak them in your mouth. It may sound gross but this is the best way I have found. Haven't run into any that are bad yet! But water works fine too!

[Curtis Fry]

Jason's right. I love those quills. Unfortunately for you mayfly swappers, I ran out of mine before I started tying, so I had to go with the cruddy chicken quills. When using those, I will either soak them in water or, if I'm too lazy to get some water, I'll work saliva into them bending them back and forth with my fingers.

I'll warn you that even though you soak them to the gills, you'll still have a good portion of them that split when you're tying. I've never had the porky quills split on me. Plus the porky quills are great for real small sizes too.

[ezlehappy]

Everyone is talking about these porcupine quills! Where do I get them and about how much do they cost?

[Curtis Fry]

www.flyshop.com/Marketplace/McLeans

[mike b]

you can get pocupine quills from western fly fishing in
slc. you do not need to soak them. also, if you are
going direct to rob mcclean try some of his moose mane in
different colors. be sure to coat with sally's or something
like it. these produce the slimmest bodies imaginable.

[Curtis Fry]

Just a plug for Rob --
Saturday I got my latest batch of materials from him for tying my Baetis and PMD duns and the quality of those quills is just great. I had used my previous supply for the past two years and these quills are even better. Plus I ordered some coastal deer hair for comparaduns and it's about the nicest patch I've used. Nice gray color, minimal underfur -- nice. Then he threw in a free package of barred rabbit strips for zonkers etc.

I've used moose mane in the past for mosquitoes, but I think I'll have to check out the other colors he has. Looks pretty good.