Preparing Wild Materials

[brown89460 0]

A new addition to the fly pattern database has been submitted by brown89460:

 

Merkin

 

[kyflytyer 0]

I am not a hunter, but have a good friend who is. He said that he can supply me with turkey feathers, duck feathers, squirrel tails, buck tails, ete. I am more than willing to take him up on his offer, but I'm concerned about possible parasites in the wild materials infecting the rest of my materials. Up until now, all of my materials have been store bought and I don't know what precautions I should take with the wild stuff. What do I need to do as far as cleaning and protecting the stuff he gives me?

[JSzymczyk 0]

there are a few threads on here regarding this topic, and there are several ways to gain some peace-of-mind.

 

The first and most effective way is chemical warfare. Take your materials, place them in a suitably sized plastic container, and dump in some Paradichlorobenzene "moth balls" or "moth crystals". Seal up the box as airtight as you can with tape. Let it sit for a week or so. The PDB vapors will KILL ova, larvae, pupae, and adults of any insect or mite in the materials. DON'T use Napthalene mothballs or flakes--- it will NOT kill the ova, and new babies will hatch eventually.

 

Less effective but perhaps easier is deep-freezing. To be effective, it must be done repeatedly, because it also will not kill off ova or all immature stages. You need to deep freeze for a week, let it sit at room temp for a week or ten days, or more, and repeat the cycle 3 or 4 times. This gives the ova a chance to hatch then you can freeze-to-death the hatchlings.

 

Some folks say you can microwave materials in 10 to 15 second bursts to kill pests. I've never done it and I would be fearful of damaging the materials.

 

Another problem with wild materials can be if they are not cleaned and preserved somehow. Feathers are not usually an issue unless they come still attached to other body parts. Bucktails, squirrel tails, any furs need to be tanned or at least cleaned, fleshed well, and dried- preferably salted and boraxed if not actually tanned. Furs and tails can stink to hell and back if not taken care of correctly.

 

Wild materials can be some of the absolute best fly tying materials you will ever see, so it is worth taking good care of them.

[Drath 0]

Let me add one more side note about wild materials. When you get done prepping them for tying put them in a container and label them. Information like, hunter, date of kill, location of kill, weight or size, sex, etc. all make it a little more fun to tie and catch fish with. It’s great to call the person that gave you the materials and tell ‘em fishin’ stories about flies you tied with their game. Like, “Hey, I tied some caddis flys with your deer hair and really nailed ‘em last weekend.”

I recently tied a dozen flies for a buddy. It made his day to find out that the wings were tied with a mallard HE shot in ’06.

My nephew just got his first fly rod. I’m getting ready to give him some drown crickets. The body will be bucktail from his dads doe last year and the legs, antenna, and tail will be from grandpa’s turkey (an 18 pound tom harvested off his farm). It just makes it a little extra special IMO.

-D

 

[Rob Knisely 0]

Squirrel tails, bucktails, feathers still on the skin: wash thoroughly in Joy, scrape as much of the meat and fat off the skin as possible with a dull knife, pat skin side dry and use a hair dryer to mostly dry the fur and feathers, then put skin side down in a flat container on top of some Borax, add some more on top and work into the fur. Turn over and cover completely after 3-4 days.

 

Should be preserved after 1.5-2 weeks. Keep an eye on the pieces though... too long and the tips of the fur will burn and you'll lose the natural taper or have raggedy feathers.

 

Plain feathers: wash in a mild soap solution (Joy again). You can let these air dry on paper towels or for prime results use a hair dryer.

 

This procedure kills/gets rid of most of creepies. Once dry, store in zip-loc bags to keep new bugs out.

 

KY has the best red fox squirrel anywhere, maybe gray too, and some very good bucktail. Course there's a bajillion turkeys, so be careful on accepting turkey feathers or you'll end up with pounds of them like I did! :crazy:

 

 

 

 

[flytire 0]

http://www.flyfishingwis.com/html/tying_materials.html