What it is
The Hareline Stonfo Hair Stacker Set is a hair-stacking tool set built from aluminum and plastic. The barrels are conical with a smooth interior so hair butts slide and square up cleanly, and the base is non-slip. It’s also corrosion resistant, which matters if you’re stacking hair at a damp bench or around saltwater gear.
What to tie with it
Use it to align and even the tips of hair fibers before you tie them in, especially when you need a clean, level edge. It’s the everyday tool for stacking hair wings and stacking hair tails, whether you’re working with small clumps for dry flies or larger bunches for bigger patterns. The basic technique is cut a bunch, drop it in tips-first, tap to level the tips, then pinch and transfer to the hook without losing alignment.
Flies and the fish they're for
Hair stackers show up any time you’re tying hair-wing dry flies and want the wing to sit even and symmetrical, like Sparkle Duns and the X-Caddis, which are trout flies on rivers and spring creeks during mayfly and caddis hatches. They’re also part of the “hackle stacker” style used on Blue Winged Olive dry flies, another staple for trout when BWO hatches get picky. When you move up in size to deer and elk hair dries, the same stacking step helps keep wings and tails neat for trout water, and those same skills carry over to larger hair-wing patterns used in saltwater and for big freshwater predators.