Fashion fad's fade fortifies feather flow for fly fishermen

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In their floppy hats, zippered vests and waterproof waders, fly fishermen generally aren't sought out for their opinions on fashion. There's no such thing as a fishanista.

But fly fisherman Kurt Kopala of Buffalo Grove need look no further than his Rubbermaid plastic container of fly-tying supplies to tell us that the fashion craze of adding feather extensions to hair is waning. Last year at this time, the demand among hairstylists for high-quality feathers to add to hairdos cut into the nation's feather supply and raised prices of the feathers that Kopala and other fly fishermen use to make the elaborate lures resembling flies that fish like to eat.

“It did affect me. You don't have to buy dry fly feathers very often, and it just so happens I ran out of the size I needed, and it's been difficult to get the size and quality I wanted,” Kopala says. “I was finally able to get the feathers I needed.”

That recent purchase signals that the great feather famine is nearly over.

“We were out of feathers for a good portion of last summer,” says Paul Melchior, an award-winning fly fisherman with Trout & Grouse, a fishing and hunting store in Northbrook that just now is rebuilding its feather stock. “There were women who had beauty salons who were buying feathers to sell to customers, and then there were individuals who were trying to do it themselves. You kind of felt like you were being a turncoat because you were selling things to people who weren't going to make the fishermen happy.”

Special roosters are bred to produce the feathers (called hackle) that fly fishermen need. With better feather selections and cheaper prices than salons and online merchants, fly fishing stores suddenly started luring stylish young women and salon owners after “American Idol” judge Steven Tyler and other celebrities wore feathers in their hair.

“The whole thing spiraled out of control. The minute we'd get feathers, we'd sell out in a minute,” says Andy Kurkulis, owner of Chicago Fly Fishing Outfitters in the city. “It's slowly coming back to normal. Some ladies are still looking for them.”

A bundle of from 10 to 30 feathers, depending on their size and quality, sells as a “hundred pack” because it can be used to make about 100 flies for fishermen. A hundred pack generally sells for maybe $20. But when the feathers were flying, those same collections were selling for hundreds of dollars in online auctions.

“At the peak, it was just ridiculous. No fly fisherman is his right mind would pay $500 for feathers,” Kurkulis notes.

But a few well-stocked fishermen sold feathers for that price.

“I have a lot of friends who cashed in,” Kopala says, explaining how fishermen who bought an entire rooster neck of feathers for well under a hundred dollars suddenly could resell them for more than $1,000. “They're buying new fly rods and even boats because of that.”

The coveted brown, “dun gray” and grizzly (black-and-gray) feathers used to make lures that look like “dry flies” landing on the water also mesh well with hairstyles.

“For some people, it was a fad,” Jodi Galle, owner of the Funky Monkey store in Lake in the Hills, says of the fashion feathers she sells. But she continues to like the way the feather looks in her hair, and so do other customers.

“We still sell them,” Galle says. “They just don't sell as quickly as they used to.”

The road from fishing to fashion might be a one-way street unless some fisherman discovers that belly button rings are perfect for catching smallmouth bass. But the odd collision of the fashion and fishing worlds brought business and attention to fly fishing, something Kopala appreciates.

Last June, the 30-year-old real-estate investor and his business partner and fellow fly fisherman, Stuart Van Dorn, started an online fly fishing magazine in Wheeling called “A Tight Loop,” which is the description of a great cast. The upcoming April edition of the free magazine at atightloop.com features a “Pond Hopping” article about all the surprisingly good fishing holes that can be found among suburban ponds and retention basins. The magazine features everything about fly fishing in the Midwest and nothing about fashion.

“In general, fishing and fly fishing are antithetical to fashion,” says Kurkulis, who doesn't foresee more competition between the fashion-minded and fishermen now that the feather flap has ebbed.

I'm not so sure. If the pairing of short shorts with Ugg boots can dominate suburban fashion, can waders with a floppy hat be that unthinkable?