Deer Hide

[mridenour 0]

I found a nice soft deerskin while digging around in my many artifacts and was wondering if there were some good applications for it in fly-tying. I've never used that material before. It is smooth on one side and rough on the other.

[tidewaterfly 0]

More uses if the hair is still on it, less if it's just the leather. The hair is used for many types of flies, including wings on dry flies & for spinning deer hair bass bug bodies. Some hair is better than others for specific types of flies & the techniques involved in tying them. The leather could be used too, but is more limited to specific patterns, mostly wrapped on nymph bodies. Some wrapped leather makes nice looking segmented bodies & because leather is a natural material, it has a better feel to it than some of the plastics, so it can be a great material for tying nymphs.

 

With the leather, how it can be used & what size flies you could tie with it will depend on the thickness & suppleness. Too thick or too stiff & it would be more difficult or even impractical to use.

[mridenour 0]

yeah, i've used hair for all kinds of things. this leather is pretty soft and i think i can split pieces to make it thinner. i'm thinking it would make some awesome nymph bodies.

[FrequentTyer 0]

I have seen some leech patterns that use chamois. I have no idea if deer hide is thin enough, but it might be possible to substitute deer hide. It will probably take dyes well, or even just coloring with markers, so you might be able to incorporate strips into bass bugs or streamers. If you can split it, maybe you could use it like Bugskin which I think is actually a leather by-product of some sort.

[flytyer166 0]

i like to use the leather for mouse patterns. i use for for the ears and the tail. other then that, i have no other uses for it other than the occasional body... my two cents

[gpd4 0]

Chamois worms, mouse tails, minnow tails, leech patterns, shellbacks...lots of uses for it if it's thin enough.