Calf tail wings are driving me nuts!!!
I'm tired of my calf tail wings looking sloppy. I must be missing something. I put them in the stacker and make a horrible ruckus trying to get them even, I'm oh so careful and taking them out and tying them on, but they are ALWAYS uneven. I must be missing something. This happens with both single and divided wings. Any suggestions or advice would by greatly appreciated.
Try using calf body hair instead.
gutbomb, If your using calf tail I have found that it doesnot stack very well. The hair is to kinky. Use calf body hair or I do not stack calf tail at all. I just tie it in with out stacking.
So, are the nice pretty flies I see in the bins with nice, neat looking white wings tied with calf body hair and not calf tail?
Thanks for your help.
If you are using calf tail for the post on parachute dry flies, do the best you can at stacking and don't worry about it other than getting the height proportions. As others have said here, calf tail is kinky and does not stack well but "close" is good enough for parachutes. Also, if you need to, there is now rule that says you can't touch up with scissors.
Dr Bob
Most of my Wulffs and parachutes now sport antron or poly wings.Originally Posted by gutbomb
About 5% of calf tails are truly suitable for dry fly wings. You need to look for straight hair with a nice tip. When you find a good one there is few things better, it becomes very easy to tie with and produces a much better fly.
For larger flies more calf tails will be usable because of the wing size the slightly kinky hair is less noticable.
I use some of the real kinky hair that does not have a mean curve at the tips for streamers.
Any calf tail that have a curve is going to be almost useless, most so if it near the tip.
We switch to calf body hair on small dry flies around a 16 and smaller, but you need to makre sure that the hair does not curve or else it will not tie well.
We also use calf body hair for most parachute posts. It has gotten better feedback in visibility and durability.
For large Wulffs (sometimes 10's but all 8's & larger) I have been using bucktail like Lee Wulff used, it produces a never nice wing but does require a large bunch of hair since the tips are so much finer then the butts. Like calf hair it does require selection not every tail makes a good fly.
The trick most of the time is the material selection, even the best tyers can't tie a good fly with material not suited for the application.
Joe Fox
To straighten out calf tail hairs here is what I do. It's not 100% perfect but it does remove a lit of the kinks. I have a Norelco portable cloth steamer that I use for this a mustace comb. Steam a section of the tail and then go over that section with the mustache comb. I do this several times and you should find it removes a lot of the kinks. It can be a little time consuming.
Trout don't speak Latin.
calf tail is easy to stack once you've gotten all of the shorties out and then run a comb through the bunch before putting them in the stacker. works for dick talleur and it works for me.
calf tail
Calf body hair is the way to go, especially when you're just starting to tie wulff style flies. I too struggled with calf tail for a year or so until somebody suggested I try calf body hair. Night and day difference.
If you're lucky enough to find one of the 5% of calf tails in the world that works for dry fly wings, then by all means use calf tail. I'm not that lucky. I still say it'd be better to learn on calf body hair though.
There's a trick to finding the right patch of calf body hair also. Look for stuff that's long enough to handle, and has a slight kink to it. A lot of the stuff being sold is extremely short and fine, too short for anything bigger than a #16 Wulff.
I have one precious patch of hair that's about 2 inches long, and has a slight wavy kink to it that ties beautiful full wings on 14-16 wulffs. It's probably very similiar to the very good calf tail that I only hear about.
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