A heretic’s question: why are bucktails used so much in Clousers and streamers such as the Thunder Creeks? Aren’t they kind of too stiff to impart action, especially when compared to bunny fur or marabou?
Is the issue avoiding the “fouling/tangling” of the material with the hook? If so, wouldn’t the best compromise be modern materials, which shed water just as easily, yet have some movement to them?
Basically, my real question is: do we still need bucktails or will they slowly fade away (I’m sure they won’t disappear, as the Dodo did) as synthetics become more available, more alive, and hopefully more affordable? (And has that started to happen already?)
I think bucktails or their cousins (squirrel, calf) will stay for exactly the qualities that marabou and synthetics DON"T have. The natural materials are stiffer than marabou or bunny, which is an advantage in streams where the current will distort a minnow (or similar) made of soft materials, but which current will activate to some degree (without distortion) the bucktail. Regarding synthetics, they are sometimes TOO shiny or sparkly. Last year I made some Clousers using several strands of whatever colour material I had in aiming for a very realistic perch minnow. It may have had a little natural material, but also had four or five strands of about 4 or five synthetics. Very well blended, nice gradation from belly to back, good fin colouration - and SO SPARKLY that no bass in a clear lake would touch it! I thought that if bass are caught on spinners and Rapalas I had a winner, but no luck. Sometimes stiffer or duller materials are just what is needed.
I think that different materials impart different characteristics to the fly. Stiffer isn’t necessarily worse, or even bad. A stiffer hair can move the whole pattern more like a darting minnow (I’ve never seen a minnow pulsate like a leech). I can help the fly maintain the intended shape and profile, while it darts about in the current, or as it is stripped through the water. I guess, it all depends upon how you fish the fly, where you fish the fly, and so on. Bucktails, like the Mickie Finn, still catch a lot of fish. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some days they outfish other kinds of streamers. I wouldn’t be surprised if some days they just couldn’t buy a strike as well. However, there are a lot of styles of flies that result in a good bait fish immitation, so one could probably get away without bucktails. On the same note, one could get away with only having bucktails for their baitfish flies, so the question would become “Do we need anything other than bucktails”? It depends upon which flies you like to have tied on while waiting for the next strike I suppose.
We were writing at the same time and had the same basic ideas. Cool! I was even thinking of mentioning squirrel tails, which I personally see as somewhere halfway between bucktails and maraboo streamers. Maraboo sort of “pulsates like a leech”, bucktail tends to be stiff and hold it’s shape more, while squirrel tail wings “expand like a puffer fish” then “contract when you strip them”. In still water fishing, I think squirrel tails are best fished in a “strip pause pause strip” type retrieve as this give time for the wing to “exhale - inhale - exhale”. Maraboo can be slow and steady, as it will just wriggle about, and bucktails need a much faster “strip strip - pause - strip strip - pause”. All, of course, generalisations that should not be viewed as “rules” but rather “guidelines” or “starting places”.
My response if from a slightly different angle than the previous posters. Hopefully I’m not missing the context of your question.
Bucktail has been in use for fly tying long before the Clouser Minnow or the Thunder Creek Series appeared. For years it’s been preferred (or the preferred sub for polar bear) on steelhead flies, classic streamers/bucktails and bass flies. It’s reasonably tough, has tapered tips, will sink or float, and is available in sufficient length for a variety of applications. That’s a tradionalist’s answer
As for fouling, I think most any material runs the risk of fouling if it extends far enough past the bend and no special effort is made in the construction to prevent/deter fouling.
Do we need bucktails? Probably not. There have been many new synthetics since Fishair years ago. Some of them are amazing in their ability to create lifelike shimmer and transluscency. I think the saltwater guys really have a preference for synthetics, whether due to the extra length of the material or its superior durability, and that’s understandable. For my use, I like the enhancement synthetics can make when incorporated with natural hair rather than as a substitute for it entirely.
As long as there are deer, I don’t think fly shops will ever stop stocking the shelves with bucktails. I think there is too much interest in and passion for tying “old flies”, regardless of their effectiveness, and that’s good. I may add some flash to the wing of a GB Skunk or use calf body hair for winging my Wulffs, but I like to keep old patterns like these close to original.
To sum it up, I think fly tying is a healthy escape from a world that continuously pushes us. Being able to recreate something that was originated the better part of a century ago with basically the same materials sometimes makes that escape all the better.
I think bucktail is a fly tying staple, like sally hansens or hackle.
You need it for some patterns and others do better with a substitute.
I fish stillwaters so I use marabou, bunny, schlappean, and all other materials I can find to get alot of movement out of my flies, There all deciscion helpers…
Yes, we’ll always need bucktail, what a question! Saltwater tyers for sure are not going to give it up. Bucktail comes alive when it is wet and tied in appropriate lengths. There no synthetics that has the life of bucktail in the water. Sure it is bit stiff when used in small trout flies, but when tied in full length for saltwater and pike streamers it becomes very mobile and life like. The key to to getting the most out bucktail is to tie it sparsely.
Interesting that the 'net can bring two thoughts together from opposite sides of the world at the same time.
I particularly like squirrel trail for topping on streamers and shellbacks on nymphs. It is tough and has a nice mottled/barred effect. Re. tying: I have collected a few roadkilled tails (keep those garden shears in the trunk with a plastic bag). After they dry a good shampooing and conditioning rinse leaves them soft , shiny and easy to work with.
I didn’t seriously mean to say we should consider throwing away our bucktails; I was just wondering whether, with today’s so many choices, we still choose bucktail over other materials when designing/creating a fly we intend to fish with (not just when recreating an old pattern) – and if so, why.
I think you have answered my questions!
As I moslty tie smaller streamers for trout (and occasionally for smallmouth bass), I think I’ll have to give squirrel tails a try : )
Of course we need bucktails, it’s our fly fishing heritage
All of the traditions of fly fishing are imported from Great Britain except bucktail streamers and tying with deer hair in general
The use of fur dubbing, feather hackles, dries, wets, nymphs… all imported ideas
Deer hair on the other hand was not available to the common English fly fisher.
Deer hunting was a sport for the upper class only (remember Robin Hood ?)
Tying with bucktail never caught on until those in the new world came up with it.
A good reason right there to keep tradition alive
Good conversation and may even tilt my opinion about bucktails. I do tie them in clousers and some other type flies and jigs if someone wants them. However I have never used them to fish with much my self and I guess based on some of this I should at least take a look at it in the water. I tie a jig I call my Sunfish Jig and it needs bucktail as well as other materials. Here is a pic…
i think we should keep using it but for a totally different reason. now with every deer you get a perfectly good bucktail. there is no cheap sub as readily availible as deer hair. theres just too many uses. so if we keep using deer we are going to keep having a suppy of bucktails. i dont see any point wasting the bucktails for a synthetic alternative when they come with something that we do need, and you can still use bucktail for a pattern just as deadly as many others. so the way i see it, is there any reason why we should abandon bucktails?
