Is all deer hair hollow

[Peter F]

With regard to hollow deer hair, is it only from certain areas of the body that the hair his hollow? If so, which areas would that be?

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Peter F
www.fishingwithflies.com
pfrailey@hotmail.com

[Hans Weilenmann]

Peter,

Here is a stack of info on the subject of deer hair selection for the job by one of industry's best, Chris Helm:

[url=http://globalflyfisher.com/staff/helm/selecting/index.html:97d6e]http://globalflyfisher.com/staff/helm/selecting/index.html[/url:97d6e]

Cheers,
Hans W


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=== You have a friend in Low Places ===
http://www.danica.com/flytier

[Peter F]

Well, Hans. The article you referenced certainly works *G*. Thanks.

Peter F.

[mickporter]

Thank you for asking this question, its something I never really understood myself. That website is great, I have printed off the charts and tables for my use.

I don't want to hijack this post, but could I take the oportunity to ask another question while we are on this subject....

As a UK dweller, we seem to have some confusion over the names used in the USA. I have bought several pieces of hair from the US. Can I assume that if a piece is marked 'deer' then that will be from a whitetailed deer??

What I would call an ELK is what you would call a Moose (a big ugly thing with flat horns. Apologies to any Moose lovers here!!) So therefore what is an Elk in your language?

And finally is there a way of knowing from looking at hair whether or not it is from the belly or back or wherever? I too find this very confusing....

PS. Is bucktail from a specific animal or is it a generic term from any deer tail?

[This message has been edited by mickporter (edited 27 October 2005).]

[ny angler]

Mike,

An elk is a member of the deer family closely related to the red stag.Very different in coat and color from a moose.Most buck tails are from white tails however a true "bucks tail" has more color than one taken from a doe.Bucks tails tend to be courser than a does.A Bucks tail has more dark brown and black fur in it .For a fact belly hair is white. Now as far as the body fur it tends to get tricky ..And don't quote me on this but .As far as fur from the back as opposed to the side, length , subtle colors,and courseness makes up the difference.Now this may be different in coastal deer hair and coues deer hair and other subspecies.Whith my limited expierience coastal hair is finer with a shorter undercoat than a whitetails found in the northern US.Hope this helps and please if anybody sees something wrong with this info or knows more let me know.

[This message has been edited by ny angler (edited 27 October 2005).]

[Hans Weilenmann]

Mick,

I will try to address some of your questions:

As a UK dweller, we seem to have some confusion over the names used in the USA. I have bought several pieces of hair from the US. Can I assume that if a piece is marked 'deer' then that will be from a whitetailed deer??

Nope. Most of the deer hair I use comes from (early season) mule deer.

What I would call an ELK is what you would call a Moose (a big ugly thing with flat horns. Apologies to any Moose lovers here!!) So therefore what is an Elk in your language?

Not sure you want to know in 'my' language, but for North America a (rather spectacular) Elk would look like this:



Taxonomy
Animalia [kingdom]
Vertebrata [phylum]
Mammalia [class]
Artiodactyla [order]
Ruminantia [suborder]
Cervidae [family]
Cervus [genus]
Elaphus [species]

And finally is there a way of knowing from looking at hair whether or not it is from the belly or back or wherever? I too find this very confusing....

The short answer is 'yes'. For the longer version, please refer to the Chris Helm article I referenced above.

Cheers,
Hans W


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=== You have a friend in Low Places ===
http://www.danica.com/flytier

Chris is like Hans said, the expert at this. He will answer any and all questions if you want to give him a call. I have his number on file here somewhere so I'll try to dig it up and post it.


Mike

[mantis]

Moose and Elk are two different animals. Moose have very wide antlers. Mule or White tail can be used. Best Hair men I know are Tim England and Carl Bradley. Chris is very good too. Chris packs quite a bid looser than the other two guys. All know their stuff. Chris has videos..All are nice people.