Understanding the anatomy of feathers improves the fly tier’s ability to make proper selection of feathers and feather parts ultimately leading to superior flies. Through this understanding the tier will know how to take advantage of the nature of the feather rather than trying to force it to do something that is unnatural to it, which invariably leads to an inferior fly, in appearance and often function. Additionally, there is a widespread misuse of terms which frequently leads to misunderstanding of what is intended to be communicated.
The parts of a typical feather are simple to learn, and once understood help us to better appreciate why feathers do what they do in different applications.
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