Blue Dun
I hit most of your questions but to add... Bear can be a bit tough to find. I ask taxidermists for scraps and get lots, usually. The last big batch of brown, grizzly and black I got was offered here for anyone wanting it. Generally the colors are honey brown to black. Bleaching works and dying does too...

Fortunately I have stumbled into a little polar bear from old rugs and have square feet of it.

I cannot imagine why the distaste for tying with bucktail. Possibly the fact I haved tied thousands of bucktailed coho flies makes it seem like a pretty natural material.
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