Availability! When I first learned to tie you could get "Deer Hair" here, that was it. Ask, "What kind of hair?" And the clerk would look at you funny, and say "Deer Hair!" So it really didn't matter what the pattern called for. It got what you had. If it worked you continued to use it. If it didn't work you looked for a pattern that did. Then in the mid 90s variety packs of deer hair started to appear, as did dyed belly hair. (You still can't get belly hair dyed green here though, I have to import mine). If you try to sell someone, who has been successfully using an EHC tied with deer hair for years, a patch of elk hair "because it is what the pattern calls for" you have no chance. Even less if it costs more than the deer hair which has always worked just fine.

I have always been impressed by the huge ranges of deer hairs stocked by some of the shops in the States. Here you get a two inch square patch that was once part of the hide of a deer. Where it came from on the beast is pot luck.

Deer stalking is a major activity here. Well it is something of a classic image of the highlands. Thousands of deer are shot every year. Mostly the skins are left on the hill to rot. A waste of a resource, but trying to convince the stalkers there is a value to them is near impossible.

Cheers,
A.