Because Henry Hoffman was a commercial fly tier, using the hackle in his own work, he brought an end-user’s perspective to his breeder selection. Literally he’d tie flies with the feathers and the best tying feathers determined which roosters became the sires for the next generation. This tying performance criteria put Henry’s breeding program in a league of its own and earned the Hoffman Hackle rave reviews and near mythical devotion.

In raising the world’s finest grizzly hackle, Henry Hoffman had several factors in his favor: a) being passionate about fishing and fly tying, b) having a directly applicable family upbringing, c) finding truly exceptional foundation stock, and d) directing the stock’s genetic development by personally using their feathers.

Henry did three other particularly fortunate things which are even more impressive:

First, he confined his breeding program exclusively to Grizzly for the first 15 years, thus focusing on only one color (also the most important), which greatly accelerated progress.

Secondly, Henry conceived and meticulously developed the first and unquestionably the best dry fly saddle hackle, thus bringing to the tying world a major fly tying innovation.

And the final unique aspect of Henry was he preferred to stay small and focus on quality instead of quantity. The Hoffman operation only grew to 2,200 roosters a year and was essentially a ma & pa operation where Henry and his wife Joyce did nearly everything. Even the family helped out, including Henry’s elderly mother and father.
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