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Fly Tying
trevinski

How to cure your roadside feathery gifts.

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So I live in Wyoming and have been tying flies ever since I've been a little kid.

Around here you find your occasional roadside diamond and you hate to just pluck feathers and throw them into a bag so I've found skinning the whole bird depending how fresh it is, is your best option. It takes some time but it's always worth it in the end. I always try to take as many bones out of the wings as you can and I try to remove the legs if your able at the knee joint. I've seen a lot of people keep the feet on too but it's another thing to rot in my eyes :S If your feathers have blood on them just get wet paper towels and clean them off depending on the animal. I've also used mild unscented shampoos and conditioners on thicker skinned birds.

Once your birds are cleaned I like to pour Borax onto the skin side of the bird this will dry and "cure" the hides keeping them from rotting. Borax is a detergent you can usually pick up at any pharmacy or grocery store. I like to keep them in the Borax for a few weeks depending on how dry the skin is. If there's still a lot of fat or tissue there just lightly scrape it and rub in more Borax till it's nice and leathery.

I'm sure there are better ways of doing this, but this is cheap and works for me :) here's a picture of how I like to lay the birds while curing. I also do this in the garage so the wife doesn't kill me lol. IMG_20160126_120946734_zpsnucpigje.jpg

These containers also work very well.

IMG_20151230_075253703_zpssqhk8hhr.jpg

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Why would it offend anyone? Just don't pick up any kind of raptor or bird of prey. They are protected and, from what I understand, it is illegal under federal law to possess the bird or any part. If you see one along the road, call the wildlife agency and give the location.

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People just seem to get offended easily these days lol

Dont sweat it, if anyone's offended by what you posted they should be tuing flies! Nice post pretty bird

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These are Hungarian partridge. What's funny is I need to buy a hun for my supplies and ended up getting one during bird hunting and finding 2 on the highway. The 2 on the highway are A grade birds woth not a feather wrong. The one that got shot is another story. Still superb wet hackles.

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The best road side kill I found one day was a Great Blue Heron. I have FWC ( Florida Wildlife Comm.) number saved in my phone so I gave them a call and got the go ahead to pluck him. Got a lot of long interesting feathers and still trying to figure out what to do with some.

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Some of the nicest Guinea I have was given to me by a gentleman in our flyfishing club. One afternoon he was on his way home from work and hit three of them that were in the middle of the road. He picked them up, brought them home, skinned them, dried the pelts and gace it all away except for one which he kept.

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rstaight, they have to be some of the stupidest birds. There is a bunch of them on the way to my grandson's school. They are always in the road. Wonder what they taste like? Chicken?

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rstaight, they have to be some of the stupidest birds. There is a bunch of them on the way to my grandson's school. They are always in the road. Wonder what they taste like? Chicken?

I have guineas I usually just pick feathers up from the ground when im outside but I wonder if they do taste like chicken, maybe I need the the whole bird now. Haha

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Guineas were running wild all over in Arizona last time we were visiting family there. Loud little boogers' Never expected to see them in the culdisacs of Arizona cities. Let's just say my eyes were peeled lol

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Air rifle with 1000 fps muzzle velocity and a good, well sighted scope, Trevinski. You, too, could have your own Guineafowl feathers and a meal for the table.

 

From Wiki-pedia:

"Guineafowl meat is drier and leaner than chicken meat and has a gamey flavour. It has marginally more protein than chicken or turkey, roughly half the fat of chicken and slightly fewer calories per gram.[7] Guineafowl eggs are substantially richer than chicken eggs.[8]"

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There's been plenty of times out fishing I wish I had a bb gun because of starlings. I still need to get my hands on a decent one. Maybe I should throw a bb gun pistol in my backpack for a while haha.

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My friend has about a dozen guinea fowl at her house, im trying to convince her she's going to loose one lol

They'll let the world know what you did for hours. Haha

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