50 replies to this topic

[Joe Hard]

caughtonlures*com, another great way to keep your mess to a minimum when clipping deer hair is to lay a sheet (about 24inches by 16inches, available at WalMart for .33 cents) of felt on your knees.

The deer hair which flies off the bench, and all too often onto your clothes, will cling to the felt, leaving you clean I saw a tyer do this last year at a show. Works great!

I usually trim my deerhair flies outside. The wind cleans up the mess eventually. An old Indian taught me that.

[jjhaag]

Kind of similar to Marty' tip, but...

I kinda hate clipping deer hair heads on smaller flies. Poppers and such are fun, but it just seems to take too long on the smaller guys. I have a set of leather punches ranging from 1/8" to 1/2" in 1/16" increments that I keep razor sharp for this kind of thing. Close a hair packer over the back of the head to protect the collar, and then just push the punch backwards to the packer. Voila. If you like cylindrical heads, leave as is; otherwise a quick cleanup makes it a nice little sphere.

And if you haven't packed the deer hair very tightly, you wind up with a cone-shaped head. I've started doing that for my muddlers and bow river buggers.

-Josh

[duckydoty]

Local taxedermy shop is great place to pick up great variety of furs and feathers that come pre treated. they call them scraps? I have sooo much deer hair, bear hair and moose main I'll never use it all.
Good Will and salvation army always have whole coats covered in mink fur, coyote fur and fox fur for real cheap too. These also come tanned and non-stinky.
But then again theres nothing like dodging 4 lanes of rush hour traffic to get that fresh turkey layin on the other side of the highway. Ah what a great prize.
Any body need any turkey feathers?
Oh and then there was also the time I just barely hit that deer and couldnt beleive it was dead. No way! not even a dent in the car. Well better not let it go to waste. Pop the trunk, toss it in and head home to clean it up. what the heck is that thumpin noise? Tires are new? huh? maybe just the road. Nope, there it is again
Pull in the driveway, open trunk out jumps deer, Got Dents Now!
Be careful whin picking up sleeping deer!
Duckydoty

[sniksoh]

that is freakin funny... lol!!!!

[Sturgeon_Catcher]

That's too funny Ducky... Heard of a trucker here in Oregon who picked one up. Dickens of a time getting that critter out of the trailer. Saw the light and the people - nothing doing that deer was ready to take up residency. Illegal in Oregon - meant for the birds and coyotes to eat. Nonetheless, you cannot take hair or tail.

Sometimes I sit at my vise with a very large hook and make nothing but dubbing loops of materials.

Make the loop about 4" long. Start the material about 1/4" from the hook.
Add material till 1/4" from opposite end.
I have a small disk of beeswax and employ it to keep the loop twisted.
Twist to desired tension.
Apply small amount of wax at top and bottom. (I stick the disk against the thread and rub up and down a few times. It's only 1/4" so you are really only rubbing one little spot)
Cut it loose!

You will find that the loop will untwist just a little but not enough to matter. When using the loop, to reset the end merely pinch off a little dubbing to expose the threads of the loop. The loop is now ready to go again.

When I first started doing this - I thought this has got to save time! It does in many ways - least of which is the clutter of materials associated with the fly and the creation of the loop. No wax (2 types), no fur or dubbing, etc. It really does save a lot of time.

also, this tip will provide you an opportunity to do some idiot work when concentration for tying may be somewhat absent.

later
Fred

[seriesofseven]

The beard trimmer was a great idea. I'm sure everyone has been yelled at for leaving feathers on the floor and have since resorted to dropping most of them in a bin of some sort. If you sort your hair, feathers, and threads from more solid objects, save them. once you'ce acquired a good amount try throwing them in a Cuisinart electric food chopper. You can make some wonderful dubbing material unlike any you've seen before. And who said the dog shedding was all that bad? -as long as it's clean, throw it in! -the fur of course.