I agree with you wholeheartedly on the burnt goose sold as spey hackle. The stuff is horrible, and short of some clever saltwater tyer finding a use for it, anyone who packages it for sale should be tarred and feathered.
Goose, however, is not a complete a complete waste. If you get the packs of plain old goose shoulders(dyed almost any possible color) and split them yourself, you've got some wonderful hackle material with long fibers. You still need to give them a in bleach solution to keep the fibers from clumping together.(Make sure you do the bleach bath after you split the feathers.)
Even though you may destroy half a pack of feathers trying to split them, it's still worth it since the feathers are relatively inexpensive, you'll get better at splitting the feathers with a little practice.
After splitting you may find yourself with some thick stem material. That's okay since the fibers are fairly long on many goose shoulders and you only need to palmer through half the fly.
I'll send you off a couple of photos later.
Tight Lines,
Jerry Dedo
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