Deer Hair?

[hungNtree]

I've been trying to spin some deer hair and having no luck at all. The thought just hit me though, I've been trying with hair from a buck tail. Should I be trying with body hair? I'm not sure if the hair is different or not. Or maybe I'm just not holding my mouth right.

thanks in advance,
hNt

[Wes]

yes, tie from body hair. depending on the size of tie use a pencil sized clump to begin with.

[Bass_Bug]

Yep, big big difference between different parts of the deer. Buck tail doesn't flair very much but flairs less and less the closer you get to the tips. Belly hair is shorter and doesn't flair much either. Body hair (form certain parts of the body) are the best for spinning.

Chris Helm is the Guru of deer hair. http://www.whitetailflytieing.com/index.htm

One of his latest DVD's http://www.bennett-watt.com/All-Abou...tinfo/NHOFT01/ will tell you all the basics.

[ldice]

Spinning deer hair might be one of those flies that would be better if you bought it instead of tying them. That would save a lot of gray hairs.

[Uncle Jesse]

Spinning deer hair is an art. Remember artist range from Van Gogh to the kid in the first grade, then there's Picasso and the guys eating mushrooms calling themselves artist. You can get better with practice, breaking the thread ran me nuts, so I bought some kevlar thread, which doesn't break as easily. I'm up to about the third grade level now.

[NJTroutbum]

I can spin the deer hair. One color...thats about it. Don't let it intimidate you though.....you may find out it's what you end up doing best:^)

[mahanvey]

Yes... deer hair spinning can be addicting. For instance I'd rather spin deer hair than work with popper foam. Others are just the opposite. With the hollow deer hair, you can get just as much float as you can foam, and do the same thing with the hair, making poppers and skimmers... It's all in the tyer's personality.

[Bass_Bug]

"Deer hair is hollow" is a misnomer. It's not hollow, it just has small air pockets in it, little bubbles if you will. The crushing of these air pockets is what makes the hair flair. Basically the diameter of the hair collapses when you cinch down the thread. In fact ALL parts of the deer hair have the small air pockets, but tail hair just has much smaller pockets.

The reason Deer Belly Hair is in limited colors is because it is naturally white and then dyed. That's why you'll find many brighter colors in the belly hair, and only darker colors in body hair. When Body hair is dyed, the base color is the natural brown/redish/gray etc.

[NJTroutbum]

Another recommendation. If you can get a decent piece of Caribou hair? Grab it. It will make spinning hair 10 times easier. Especially on the smaller patterns.

[Bass_Bug]

If you haven't already checked out your local library, it's a hidden treasure. My local library is part of an 80+ State wide (Ohio) library consortium. All the individual catalogs are combined into one online catalog for the state. If any one library has an item, it shows in the catalog. When I reserve something, they ship it to my local library (or any library I choose). If it's available, I usually get an item within a couple of days tops. This goes goes for CD's and DVD's as well.

Also, just about every library these days is part of an Inter-Library-Loan system. If they don't have something you're looking for, they will try to find it for you from anther library they share with. I tried to get a Geirach book one time that was not in the system. I asked if they could get it and about 2 weeks later they called and said it was in. They bought it from Amazon because no other library at the time had it. After I returned it, they just added it to their inventory and put it on the shelf. How cool is that??? I dont mind waiting if it's free! If nothing else it's a great "try before buy".