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It's squirrel, I just don't know what kind. The shop I bought it from doesn't know either. I've had it for a few years so they don't remember. I thought it was bleached fox squirrel but they didn't think so. I don't know if it is natural or if it has been treated in some way.

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It looks more like wood chuck to me also. Here's a pic of a natural fox squirrel skin on top of a wood chuck skin that I have. You can see the squirrel guard hairs are way more dense and about 3/4 of an inch in length. The wood chuck skin section is towards the head where there's more of the golden hair on the throat area. The guard hair on that is around 1 1/2 inches in length. It's not pine squirrel or gray squirrel.

 

Regards,

Mark

 

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This is a red fox squirrel. Look for Dave Whitlock's RFSH (red fox squirrel hair) nymph. Looks like this one was worked over a bit. The guard hairs are used for the tail. Maybe I have a picture here somewhere.

 

Ahhh - found a picture in one of my folders.

 

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That's nice Johnny. Did u use any synthetics in that fly ?

Thanks... sorry for the long answer; I met Dave Whitlock over 30 years ago at a fishing show in the Worcester (now DCU center) Centrum. There was a Noreaster that night causing the lights to go out. Dave was tying these nymphs and his sculpin in a small room when it went dark. He continued under the emergency lighting for longer than his scheduled session. There are lots of classy people you meet in this community and Dave is up near the head of the class. I haven't fished this pattern in years. I used a coffee grinder to mix up some bits of orange wool yarn and some of the natural orange squirrel fur. I don't recall using any synthetics but I wouldn't hesitate to if they were handy. I'd probably use a dubbing loop for the body these days. Epilogue; After that show I had to get a vise just like Dave was tying on so later that year I got a Renzetti presentation (their only model at the time) which I tied a bunch on bugs on yesterday.

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Yup Dave is a good guy. When I was going to shows as a kid the use to call him the "Silver Fox", unfortunately we are all quite a bit older since then. I have a very nice inscribed book from him as well from back in the 80's . I had big hair back then ! Lol

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The colors are right for a red fox squirrel, but the fur looks longer than typical for a squirrel. It's hard to tell from the photo without a sense of scale. If the back guard hairs are long enough to tie a wing on a #6 or 8 wet fly, I'd say it's a woodchuck (aka groundhog), but if the fur isn't useful for much other than spiky dubbing, it's probably a fox squirrel.

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