Am I the only one here that started hunting to procure fly tying material?

[Stillinscrubs 0]

First with a BB gun then in high school to get pheasant feathers to tie smallmouth bass flies.  

I had no family members that really hunted so, I was self taught or sought out help until I found it.

Anybody else have fly tying as the driving force.  Duck hunting took my focus from fly fishing for a long time, then bow season, then alligators.....

[flytire 0]

i'm not an animal hunter of any kind so i have to purchase natural materials at my favorite fly shops

 

[niveker 0]

No, but fly tying did get me to start picking up road kill.  

[Stillinscrubs 0]

7 hours ago, niveker said:

No, but fly tying did get me to start picking up road kill.  

It’s seems the only way to get comparadun quality hair. 

[Trouttramp 0]

On 2/13/2025 at 9:04 AM, Stillinscrubs said:

First with a BB gun then in high school to get pheasant feathers to tie smallmouth bass flies.  

I had no family members that really hunted so, I was self taught or sought out help until I found it.

Anybody else have fly tying as the driving force.  Duck hunting took my focus from fly fishing for a long time, then bow season, then alligators.....

How do you sterilise your found materials? 
Some pheasant tails givin to me, introduced bugs to my other materials. Had a heck of a time getting rid of them.  

[Stillinscrubs 0]

23 hours ago, Trouttramp said:

How do you sterilise your found materials? 
Some pheasant tails givin to me, introduced bugs to my other materials. Had a heck of a time getting rid of them.  

Borax.  Borax is a natural insecticide, inert to humans to the best of my knowledge.  Cover fresh skin in it.  I have turkey tails that I cut off a turkey 32 years ago, covered the flesh portion in a small mound of borax and pinned the feathers out on a board.  Once dry I shook off the excess borax and the tail still hangs on the wall, it has survived many moves.  Borax will treat skins so that hair stays fast in them also.  Once the feathers and furs have borax around them no mites or other critters bother them.  

[troutguy 0]

Borax is your friend. Do not use salt.

I skin everything I hunt. I mostly hunt woodcock, ducks, turkey and quail.I skin the entire bird. I pick up roadkill too. I picked up a huge beaver, skinned it and dried it with borax this winter. Picking up roadkill is legal here, except birds of prey. 

Nothing goes to waste. I eat the meat, give entrails to chickens and grind carcass (bones and all) and add to dog food.

I was duck hunting on public land three years ago. I shot a gadwall and a male wood duck. There were some idiots about a hundred yards up from me. They short a few. They left about nine, l left about thirty minutes after them. Walking the trail out, I found they had breasted their ducks and left the carcasses. I picked up two male wood ducks, a black duck, and a male mallard. In the parking lot was two game wardens and the four idiots. The one game warden came over to me. The idiots hollered those are their ducks. The game warden looked at my ducks, two intact and four missing breast meat. He asked hypothetically, you wouldn’t throw out the meat right and why might someone pick up a discarded duck? I said there was good thigh meat, fly tying feathers and my dogs ate the rest. The game warden told me if there were any other ducks in the woods to go get them so they didn’t goto waste. I went back for two more wood ducks. You can only have three in possession. 
 

The idiots got drinking alcohol while hunting, wanton waste, and not having the carcasses.