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JD45

Oh that smell

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I'm getting a real bad smell from calf tails and some deer/elk hair hides. I believe they're drawing gnats. Does hanging them outside kill the smell or just draw flys.

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I know this helped me out with this issue. I store all my natural materials, hides & skins, in Ziplock bags and stick a dryer sheet in the bag with it. The dryer sheets don't overwhelm the materials with orders but does help with the natural smells that do come off of these hides over time.

 

Mike

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Like Mike said, your stuff should be kept sealed up - if it's drawing gnats, it could also be drawing moths, which will destroy your materials stash. It only takes a couple of tiny moths in the house and it's adios for your stuff. Hanging it outside pretty much guarantees that's gonna happen.

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I would get some ziploc bags and 20 Mule Team Borax. Liberally put borax over hide and store colsed in bag for a couple of days. The freezer is good for somethings, but a household freezer may not get cold enough to kill everything, especially if you have eggs. If freezing killed everything North Dakota and Maine would not have bugs.

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also add mothballs t keeps bugs away but the fish don't mind the smell of old ladies :lol:

 

I remember John Gierach saying something like "if your tying room doesn't smell like Aunt Matilda's closet, you're living dangerously." Amen to that. My wife gets a kick out of watching me go into "search and destroy" mode whenever a moth gets into the house, but there's no room for mercy when fur & feathers are at stake.

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reading this thread gave me some impetus to go through my bucket of bucktails and weed out the most odoriferous of offenders and to sort out the tails i bought for tying saltwater flies. off to the landfill with the smelly and salty bucktails! tying room smells better already!

 

gonna look for cedar chips to put in the bucket for the remaining tails

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My materials are stored in ziploc bags in plastic locking boxes inside a cedar lined closet. I use Seven powder in an envelope with holes in and place them in materials that hasn't been processed for fly tying shop. Freezing is not a guarantee though.

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reading this thread gave me some impetus to go through my bucket of bucktails and weed out the most odoriferous of offenders and to sort out the tails i bought for tying saltwater flies. off to the landfill with the smelly and salty bucktails! tying room smells better already!

 

gonna look for cedar chips to put in the bucket for the remaining tails

 

Ya' did the right thing...

 

Everyone needs to remember that you have animal parts that are malodorous, then they are not cured/dried completely, and the offending odors are from flesh that is rotting/spoiling. No matter how ya' try to cover up such odors, these materials are very prone to attract "little beasties" that will be quite appreciative of your other stored "animal parts."

 

In the end, no matter where the malodorous parts came from/cost, they are not worth keeping...

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If one disposed of every 'malodorous' fly tying material in their collection, no one would have a single bucktail in the kept lot! In fact, no one would ever buy one in the first place! In my 42 years of tying,I have yet to find a bucktail that did NOT smell to high heaven: and I know of no fool proof way of eliminating the odor! And, yes, I have actually harvested and processed my own. I can assure anyone that they were adequately cured and dried!

 

A moth deterrent used in many fly shops in their fly bins is whole cloves---the spice. It works.

 

Cheers!

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i will add that i got rid of the worse offenders in the bucket of bucktails, not all of them. plus some of them were pretty shi%%y in quality anyway

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If one disposed of every 'malodorous' fly tying material in their collection, no one would have a single bucktail in the kept lot! In fact, no one would ever buy one in the first place! In my 42 years of tying,I have yet to find a bucktail that did NOT smell to high heaven: and I know of no fool proof way of eliminating the odor! And, yes, I have actually harvested and processed my own. I can assure anyone that they were adequately cured and dried!

 

A moth deterrent used in many fly shops in their fly bins is whole cloves---the spice. It works.

 

Cheers!

 

My OH My, Mr Sensitive!

 

As another tyer of well over 30 years and a "materials hound", of course I understand that some animal parts will have an "off" odor, including many (but not all) bucktails, whether you personally harvested/processed or ya' purchased them.

 

But all bucktails don't stink! I have a fair number of bucktails and a whole bunch of other animal pieces and parts that I have harvested/processed that have very little, if any odor. Often it depends upon the time that you wish to spend and the care that you take in processing your items.

 

BUT when you have things that just STINK, you should probably toss 'em. That is NOT rocket science(nor an attack on anyone's collection/housekeeping). I've done that with bucktails, turkey wings, pheasant and other wings/tails, whole rooster hides, and a few duck skins. Most were gifts from tying friends, and all of those "malodorous" items were NOT fully processed. Therefore, the flesh was rotting/stinking.

 

Plus IMHO, ya' can put these poorly processed items in with any "sweet smelling stuff" that you like, but they are rarely worth the trouble and possible risk.

 

Bowfin47

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I think the Pot just called the Kettle BLACK!

 

For the past 10 years I have put together the materials kits that our club provides for our students. These kits contain five different colors of bucktails each. I have put together 20 such kits per year, with the basic materials coming from every major purveyor in the country. This equates to 100 tails per year. I have yet to receive bucktails that did not stink. Moreover, the stench is quite different from that of rotting flesh. Also an 'aroma' that I am not unfamiliar with.

 

Cheers!

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