In the search for a natural winging material that is locally abundant and not of canine origin (aside from what I can clip off our Aussie Sheps when they get their bi-annual shaving), I was wondering if anyone has tried soaking buck tail in a warm water bath with some hair conditioner to soften the hairs. Deer are more abundant around here (North Jersey) than bunny rabbits.
Is it 'local abundance' (& therefore "sustainability") you are concerned about?
Fox is very abundant almost everywhere, but if you have a principled objection to all canines, then fox is probably not for you.
Softer hair, but from the same family as deer/buck/moose etc is reindeer - but then again, probably not available locally
I've never tried to soften bucktail by any method, but I haven't placed such strictures upon myself as to materials used for winging...perhaps a warm water wash with hair conditioner will do the trick, and if'n it doesn't make the bucktail softer, it'll at least be more shiny & smell good!!! :saevilw:
I'm not sure there's going to be any way to get bucktail to take on the same properties as temple dog or any of the softer hairs. They are just not structurally the same hair. Yes, made of keratin, but deer (by and large) are a hollow haired animal that relies on a lot less underfur to regulate and maintain body temperature compared to a fox/dog/etc. The hollow hair acts an insulated blanket, I guess. Usually, the outer coat of a dog or fox is waaay softer with substantially more underfur. Try as you may, I don't think any amount of conditioner is going to achieve your desired results. Icelandic sheep, arctic runner, finnish raccoon, arctic fox, etc, etc are all great alternatives to temple dog. Although, some of the harvesting methods are just as brutal as that of temple dogs.
For the time being, I'm going to try tying with squirrel as a "local"'substitute; will use calf tail when white is required. I'll try conditioning some buck tail later this week and will report if it's successful.
look for patches of goat hair to, i stumbled across it when buying materials for dry fly posts, its long enough, soft enough and is really quite nice to tie with, not sure on available colours though, iv only found it in white so far, used it for green butt skunks etc
The "canine" thing brought to my mind the idea of wolf hair, that should be niiiice for tying
On the deer side, i remember i treated a nucktail using a keratin recharge, the hair got really soft and wiyh yons of movement, but it is still a bit too thing for some flies.
Jamie - Thanks for the input. I absolutely have an issue with the methods used to come by some of the natural materials. I'm certainly not claiming to know the entire story behind all of them, but Finn Raccoon is another material (being another canid) that I'm not interested in using. I'll do some playing around with buck tail and see what I come up with. Will also look into sheep and goat hair. Basically, I'll tie with just about any material that's not canine in origin (again, other than what I can use from our own dogs, which takes care of black, white, and all shades in between). Synthetic furs just haven't cut it for me.
Thought I'd take a minute and sift through Chris Mann's "Hairwing and Tube flies for Salmon and Steelhead" to see where you might be all boondoggled up about tailing and/or winging material. A fairly quick paging through the book reveals little need for canine materials, unless you want to tie some Templedog proper flies. Lots of the tubes call for bucktail...I'd suggest you look for smaller bucktails (probably really doe or yearling tails); they are much finer than those big crinkly "northern" bucktails that the shops like to sell. They (the big ones) are ok for bass bugs, but not much else.
Typically, hairwings require little in the way of a tail, other than a feather of some sort, which is unlikely to be canine in origin and bear or squirrel or moose for wings.
Honestly, I just don't see the fuss; there's just so little need for canine-based tailing material and there's just so much else out there.
Anyway, I think I'll go shear my english setter (that's a joke, son),
Gary
Hello Gary,
It's really just a personal preference thing in terms of the softness of winging material. I really love marabou, but it can have a tendency to wrap around the shank at times; I also use quite a bit of zonker (primarily rabbit since it has a much more pliable hide than squirrel), secured at the front and rear of the shank, because the hair has a flowing characteristic. Arctic fox has a similar characteristic. I'm not trying to improve upon the standards of tying hair wings; I wouldn't presume to do that. The goal is to come up with a winging material that has more life than buck tail (all that I have is Northern; I'll keep your comments in mind). So these are not traditional hair wings; they're kind of a hybrid that incorporates a number of elements. I need to post some pics, as soon as I can get my iPhone to sync photos to the computer.
They're Sneakies. Blue worked in 2009, couldn't do a thing with the color in 2010...thank heavens for orange, which did the trick.
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