Wild Duck CDC

[hap]

Today was opening day here and my son and I shot quite a few birds. We have been doing this for a lot of years and I have this problem with throwing away perfectly good materials... I saved the CDC from about a dozen birds... we had 16 total to clean... I started to put the zip-lock sandwich bag in with all the others from however many years it has been... and realized I need help!

So the first one that claims the baggie gets it... PM or post here... first date stamp gets it either way.
The CDC is a fairly uniform DARK dun... All of it is dark colored. The species in the bag include shoveler, widgeon, pintail, scaup, goldeneye, and gadwall. These are mostly young birds and not fully mature.

What you will not get is prime CDC as long as your arm... There may be a few non-CDC feathers in the bag... There may be a bloody feather or two (I think I got most of those out) and it will not be light enough to color (unless it is bleached) any other way. A few birds did have quite nice stuff so there is some better "stuff" in the bag. Especially for slightly smaller stuff <12 there will be hundreds of flies worth of CDC.

I put a little Borax in the bag to ensure the CDC dries and nothing bad grows in it. It should shake out easily and will "polish" the CDC a bit.

Would be tickled if a youngster got the bag... but first dibs is the rule, even if you are a geezer!

All I ask is that you pass a little good will down the line; help another learn to tie, pass on some materials you have in excess, or help a little old lady across the street.
art

[lastchance]

Just wanted to say, " good for you, Hap." I hope a young guy gets them.

[quivira kid]

I'm just jealous you guys get to get into the ducks this early! A dozen ducks worth of CDC should have filled up a sandwich size zip lock nicely.... definitely worth snatching up if you tie with CDC!

[narcodog]

CDC is one of the most over looked material, IMO. I just started tying with it three years ago and now it has become one of my fav's along with Aust possum.

[Cliff955]

What Lastchance said! Cliff

[zerosleep]

I will take a bag if still available. Thank you

[ScottP]

Art,

Do you notice much difference in the feathers between species? I always assumed the stuff we get commercially is from a mallard, but you know what they say about when you assume....

Regards,
Scott

[narcodog]

Scott. I was in Trout Hunter last and asked about their CDC. I didn't ask about what species but I was told all of their CDC comes from France.

[Allan]

I'd be willing to wager that the really good cdc comes from some very large species of domestic duck.

[hap]

I will take a bag if still available. Thank you

zerosleep
I have some bad news and some good news for you... The bad news is you were beat to the draw by an earlier request via PM.

The good news is my son and I just came home with ten more ducks. Send me your mailing address by PM and I will get the second bag out to you in tomorrow's mail.
art