Musk Rat

[Donald Nicolson]

A little info required! Is musk rat dubbing water proof?
It is not a native animal over here.

[ducksterman]

Donald,

Muskrat is an aquatic animal and it's fur would be considered "waterproof"... for example as would beaver and mink.

[Gandolf]

Hi Donald,

Much of the muskrat that is sold for fly tying is tanned. The tanning process removes almost all of the natural oil that was originally on the fur. In some tanning processes a bit of the oil that is removed is replace by added back a bit of a natual or petroleum based oil to help the hide.

When I process skin from an animal from a hunter or that I have obtained in some other way, I scrape it thoroughly. Then wash with hot soapy water, and plenty of it. The skin is then rinsed with several clean water rinses, borax treated/dried. Such usually removes any fat/oil. (If not I have other steps that will remove the fat/oil.)

At any rate such fur is oil free, and as such will not float better than rabit fur.

When using a dry fly tied with the oil free muskrat, such as a Gray Wulff or mallard flank Adams, I treat it with dry fly floatant, and it does well. Thus fishing such fur in a dry is not a problem. I don't care to tie with fur that has any fat/fatty oil present, as it is nasty, and so I go to quite a bit of trouble to get rid of any oil before tying with it.

Regards,

Gandolf

[Donald Nicolson]

Thank you gentlemen,
The skin has been tanned I think, the reverse side looks like nice clean chamois leather.
That's ok as I want to use it for unweighted nymphs and emergers.
Do you have any good patterns?

[Betty Hiner]

Donald,
The All Chuck Caddis works up beautifully with muskrat. It was the fly of the week some time ago (a couple years?). Originally tied by Grant Ings (Yaffle).
Betty

Just checked ... 4th quarter 2004.

[kengore]

I have some muskrat the I got from a hunter friend, salt dried and not tanned.

I don't see any particular water repelling properties vs. any of my other dubbing choices. All of them start to sink eventually and really benifit from the use of a good paste floatant.

I choose the muskrat mostly for it's color and tying properties. Fine soft fibers that are very easy to dub.