Materials for bass spinner

[TNFlyTier 0]

I used to fish with something called Mike's Hairy Minnow. He's no longer around but another man makes them. I've ordered some and used them, but I want to tie some of my own. I've tied dozens of marabou jigs and a few flies, but I'm kinda new. What is the material he's using for the wings of this lure. Looks like horse mane to me, but I don't know. (Link below)

 

https://www.storesonline.com/site/1539927/page/706964

 

 

[MickThompson 0]

Looks like it could be calf tail.

[gpd4 0]

Looks like black bucktail to me...

[flytire 0]

only 1 way to know for sure - buy 1

 

looks like they could be made with squirrel tail, bucktail, marabou etc

 

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http:/...EO4SclgeE0ZHWBw

 

scroll down to "bass spinner flies"

[TNFlyTier 0]

I purchased a dozen, but me not being a fly tier for long, I'm still not sure. I can tell you it's very coarse hair. It's not squirrel. Pretty sure it's not calf tail (at least not the calf tail that I've seen so far). It's the color and consistency of horse mane and tail. Some of the tailes on the lure are feathers, and some he makes out of the same hair (depending on what color tail it is) and the body of course is chenille.

[c-denby 0]

I would say black bucktail or calf tail.. Bucktail can come in many different hair consistencies and can be quite course or very thin and supple.. It's definately not horse hair as I have several horses and tie with their hair regularly..

 

 

I would suggest going through your local stores bucktail selection and picking out a couple different black tails that have different consistencies of hair. Also the hair will be different from near the base to near the tip of the tail so try different areas of the tail.. Another material you might try tying these with would be black bear. Very nice stuff..

 

Cheers,

Chris

[TNFlyTier 0]

It's Bucktail. It hit me when you said bucktail jigs. I've used bucktail jigs for white bass and sauger in years passed. And now that I think of it, it's too crinkly and stiff for horse hair.

 

Thanks guys

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

It looks to have some thick downy type underfur in the hair. I've seen Fox fur that looks like this wing. Also, looking at the pictures, it looks like they uesed different hair on at least two of them. I would guess that they are using any black hair for the wing.

My guess is 2" fox fur, the guard hairs are kind of crinkly and there is thick underfur. and if not, that would be a really good material to use for that application.

 

Kirk

[Flytyer14 0]

I was gonna say black bear! EXCELLENT stuff!

[JSzymczyk 0]

it is bucktail, nothing exotic or special. It's just cut off and tied on, not cleaned and stacked.

 

Dont forget bucktail has a wide variation in textures and qualities from one tail to another.

[tidewaterfly 0]

Sometimes it's hard to tell from a picture what a material might actually be. I don't think it's fox, because it looks to have a lot of guard hairs, and doesn't look to be as fine as fox in texture. But, fox would certainly work.

 

If the hair is dyed black, then I would say it's fine textured bucktail, but if it's a natural black color, then it's likely bear hair. Jerry's been tying flies & making lures for a long time and much of his stuff is old school. Bear hair used to be quite popular for streamers, and is still a great material to use. Bucktail is very widely used, but you do have to be a bit selective of what you buy, or you could end up with something that is too course for this type of fly. Most shops only carry large bucktails, because they seem to equate large to value, but small to medium size will often have better hair for tying smaller flies.

 

When I tied commercially, I tied a lot of hair jigs, and made a point of buying small to medium bucktails, because I wanted fine textured hair. I used to buy several hundred at a time & still had to sort thru them to find the ones with the best hair. The rest were used to tie bigger saltwater jigs.

 

Another material I've used for small flies & jigs, that works as well as bear IMO, is Aussie Opossum tail. It has a very similar appearance to bear, but is usually finer textured. Some will be a very dark brown, and some will be almost black. Again, it's best to look it over before you buy.

[riffleriversteelheadslayer 0]

it looks like skunk tail to me or black bear

[TNFlyTier 0]

Well, I just got a couple spcially ordered colors in from him yesterday. I'm sitting here looking at them, but still can't tell for sure. I think it's too coarse for skunk. Could be bear. Anyway, I've got some good looking lures. I asked for blue and white to immitate minnows and brown and orange for crayfish. Now I've just got to find the time to try them out.