l recently bought fiery brown chinese saddle hackle. Can l use this hackle for dry flies such as an adams fly?

Chinese saddle hackle has some pretty long barbules for using for dry flies. Dry fly feathers, such as those from a cape are very stiff as opposed to the feathers from the saddle of the bird.

Although you can use these, you will be making an inferior fly and why would you want to do that?

In short, no. The only saddle hackle you'd want to use for hackling trout dries is genetic, such as that offered by Whiting. Then u could make ur choice of using saddle hackle or neck hackle.

Chinese saddle is good for streamers, steelhead/salmon flies, & bass/warmwater flies. The barbs r long & typically quite soft.not qualities found in good dry fly hackle.

You can find India capes (necks) for a good deal less than genetic hackle. The feathers often have stiff barbs, but the relatively cheap purchase price comes at the cost of very short feather length & fewer feathers per cape. It is not an economical choice if u r tying any real quantity of flies.

Imported capes/saddles r a byproduct of food production. The quality is not that great & the selection is limited. At one time, imported feathers were the common choice, & the quality & selection was far superior than what is now available.

There r numerous producers of genetic hackle today. The price is very good for what u get & has consistently gotten better over the years. You can now get excellent hackle when u buy the lower grade ''#3 ''C or ''bronze'' grade necks & saddles. You can even buy partial necks & saddles if you're not a high production tyer.