Hair from the hide

I was lucky enough to harvest a bull Elk this season and after packing the meat out I wanted to take some of the hide for tying material. I took a couple of 8x8 peices that I thought might work, but I was wondering if anyone knows what part of the hide works best? Secondly, what works best for preserving the hide? I have heard of using salt or Borax.

The most important thing is to make sure you have scraped away all of the meat and fat from the hide. At that point you can just air dry it if you like but I have always worked borax into deer skin pieces I have saved and they have kept well. I've never skinned an elk so I don't know what parts to save but I do know that in the past I have purchased elk mane for the extra long hair and elk hock for the short hair with very little flair for small elk hair caddis. I have no idea where on the animal the rest of my hair came from.

Thanks for the info rainbowchaser, the scraping of the hide was more labor intensive than I expected, however I hope to be better prepared next season. I look back at all the tying material that I could have had. It would have been nice to start tying flies at 15 when I started hunting. All those upland and waterfowl birds, deer, elk and bear oh my. Its pretty funny that the same friend that taught me how to hunt and fish 31 years ago is also the same one that introduced me to this site. Thanks again

I'm not sure if you can compare the hair on an elk to that of a white tail deer, but here is a site that I saved awhile back that tell you how you can use the different hair on a white tail deer.
http://globalflyfisher.com/staff/hel...ing/chart.html

If not perhaps someone could expain how it differs.
Roy

im just copying and pasting this from my reply about the spinning deer fur bulliten. but alot of it may apply to elk hair as well. this is mainly for spinning purposes but the thicker the hair, the better for spinning. the thinner the hair, the better for things like wings and tails where you dont want it to flare.

"also deer hair from different parts of the body will spin differently. if possible, get the deer hide from a hunter as they will know exactly what part of the deer the fur came from.

The white belly fur is the best for spinning purposes. then the light grey with light brown tips from the side of the deer for about 8-10 inches up from the white belly fur are next best. above that especially on the back, and the tail fur is very very poor for spinning. the dark hair right along the back and the tail i have found will rarely spin at all. and also make sure you dont get it from the front of the deer, or on the legs. this will be too short. but the very long fur right before the tail for about 5 inches is some of the best.(but not the fur on the tail or the white fur just short of the tail.) mainly for length but it also spins veeeerrrryyyy well.

if you dont have access to info on where the fur came from on the deer, an easy way to tell is how light or dark it is. the lighter the fur, in general, (once again excluding the tail) the thicker it is and thus the better for spinning it is. (it may be very difficult to tell if the fur is dyed) the darker the fur is the worse it is for spinning-the darkest being located along the center of the back.

another way to tell is by looking at how thick the individual hairs are. compare a few sections and determine which looks the thickest. this will be the best. deer hair is hollow which is what allows it to flare, and so the thicker it is, the more hollow space there is and the more it will flare."

the biggest thing though would be to just expiriment around and see what you like hair from each area for. ive even heard of using fur from sensitive areas like the teets, ears, arm pits (or leg pits i guess) for dubbing because its softer there.
just my 2 cents

Hi Lash,

The cream color elk rump hair can be used for such patterns as the Henry's fork hopper. As was mentioned above, the hock hair is often used for small elk hair caddis. For winging, if similar to deer, the hair in the center of the middle of the back is good for winging flies. It should be good for larger elk hair caddis, and stimulator type flies.

There is long dark hair on the neck that should be good for larger dark hair wing streamers.

Regards,

Gandolf

Next time, take one extra hike and pack out the whole hide. Scrape it down, air dry and stretch it out and you'll have a life time supply of great material.

Coarse hair is good for spinning, caddis and caparadun wings. Fine hair better for wet wings and tails. In between hair is better for dry wings and tails. It is best to look at a hide and sample what the hair can do at certain spots. Different seasons and different animals will produce different hair.

Great information, I knew I could count on the members here for help. Packing out the hide would provide a huge bounty of material and once my abilities at preserving a hide improved I would have no problem sharing the material with FAOL or my local club, Southern Oregon Fly Fishers.

Thanks so much

also, definitely preserve as much hide as you can. even if you don't intend to use it. with deer i preserve most of the hide, and then with what i dont need i trade it for other things like duck, turkey, pheasant, etc... i dont hunt birds so rather than spending more money it feathers, i just trade with hunters who do. they usually have lots on hand and are more than willing to make a trade. might be save you some money doing the same with elk.

Not sure how well this info might apply to elk hides but Chris Helm has a chart on one of his deer hair spinning videos that shows what parts are good for spinning, etc. He might have this info on his web site too.

Rick