I just read the article and seems like a great idea. I have never had a problem with bugs but I am sure I will someday. I only see one problem.
When I tie I use my mouth a lot. Holding materials waiting to go on, wetting hair and hackle to make it go where I need it. Al mentioned a hackle that was out of the box for a week and still killed a house fly that landed on it. How is this stuff going to work on me when I forget and place a feather on my tongue? Anyone have any answers or suggestions?
I know what you mean, and when we are not thinking it is an easy thing to do, use the saliva from our mouth or grab a sandwich after touching a bunch of flies. I do think about that every now and then when I am at the tying table, handling the tying materials for an hour or two, what chemicals am I getting on my fingers.
In theory, we can use bottled items for knot lubrication, like George Gehrke’s Knot Lube.
Always use clippers to cut the tag ends of the knots rather than using your teeth (your dentist will love you for doing that).
Wash and wipe your hands before touching food (push come to shove, the water you are in has fewer contaminates than the chemicals on your hands). You can carry a few packs of Wipes for that purpose. You should have them anyway just in case you need to use nature’s facilities.
But then remember the fly. Body mass ratio of a person to a fly is a bit bigger, in some cases like me a lot bigger, so it will take a whole lot more chemical to keel me over than a fly. However, over time some chemicals do have an accumulating effect.
Guess the best suggestion is try to be aware of chemical contaminates but when you mess up it most likely will not hurt you a whole lot.
I don’t want to sound like a whining weaning but Al’s article scared the hell out of me the first time that it appeared on FOAL. Not because of the chances bugs eating up my Conranch and Whiting Capes but because of that description of a fly dying on the cape that had been left out in fresh air for over a week. I don’t want to handle anything that is so poisonous. All those chemicals can be absorbed through your skin. Flies are tough guys; they will be here long after the human race is gone. If it killed a fly before the fly could get away, what is it doing to our system? The situation is worsened for those of us, like Flyrodde, who have frequent oral contact with our fly tying material. I mean no disrespect to Al, JC or anyone else, but I would remind you that Al died at a very young age of brain cancer. I’ve often wondered if those No Pest stripes didn’t play some role in his untimely, unfortunate death. If fly tying materials remain that deadly after being exposed to No Pest Strips, it certainly seems possible.
I, for one, will stick with my flea collars. At a buck a collar, they aren’t unreasonably expensive and if they don’t kill my dog, I don’t think they will kill me. I know that some (many?) are going to disagree and I expect some will do so vehemently. Once again, I mean no disrespect but I have a genuine concern for the safety of those members using No Pest Stripes. Well, that’s my 2% of a dollar. 8T
Eight Thumbs I agree, I also have had concerns re the pest strips and it killing more than the bugs. I also have used flea collers.
I try to wash my hands often when tying and keep a glass of ice water on the bench so if I need to wet somthing the condensation off the glass is available to run my fingers accross.
Like many others, I am much more concerned about the chemicals and poisons used to preserve the natural materials than I am from eating critters. That being said, I stopped licking my fingers years ago to wet them when handling fly-away materials like maribou. Instead, I use an old fashioned “stamp wetter” to moisten my fingers. It’s the kind that is made from white ceramic and it has a cylinder that rolls through a resevoir of water. As the cylinder rotates, it picks up just the right amount of water to moisten my fingers so I can “tame” those fly-away materials. I have to fill the water resevoir about evry 5 days. This is just one way to solve the problem, but it works great for me.
I wish my problem was just licking my fingers but I don’t even do that. For soft hackles I prep the feather, then lick it to keep the barbules down while I tie it in by the tip. I’ll do the same with marabou to keep it tame. Its my lips and teeth I use as a third hand that are giving me trouble with the pest strip. For now I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed and keep a look out for flee collar sales. Has anyone ever tried the liquid stuff for the back of a pets neck? Spritzing that on the inside of your bins might work, though for how long I wouldn’t know. Any vets out there have any info on it?
I get my flea collars at Dollartree for, you guessed it, a dollar. I don’t think that you will ever see a dollar “sale” on flea collars at a regular store but the Dollartree and other similar stores often have them available. I would advise that you buy a bunch when you see them because they don’t always have them. Also try and buy dog flea collars because they are twice the size of the cat collars. I cut the collars into four pieces and put a piece in each corner of my fly tying drawers. I also put an inch-sized piece in each material bag.
Even with flea collars, I would wash my hands after tying and keep the material out of my mouth. James Smith has a pretty good suggestion with the stamp wetter. My hands turn black from handling dry marabou and it seems like it would be pretty unpleasant to wet with my mouth unless of course I just spit on it. Good luck with your flea collar hunt. 8T
the freezing or microwaving methods do not work. That one is from Ronn Lucas Sr. He has posted the correct thing to do here before, same thing, flea collars or pest strips are the most reliable.
JC post is in response to an article I wrote.
I had some things to repel bugs in my materials. I still got an infestation.
Moth ball gave me a headache and did nothing.
I put up a no pest strip Friday evening. I found a few moths this morning not moving fast.
I think there is a difference in prevention and treatment. The no pest srip is not bothering me and I pick up on many chemcials from an old head inury.
I will go for the no pest strip over moth balls and what it does to me.
I’m not a vet but … that stuff is a systemic chemical, not topical. i.e. it works not by direct contact on the surface, but by entering your pet’s system and killing eggs laid on the skin (or perhaps preventing their development). I doubt if it would work for a fly bin and besides, its really expensive.
I’ve always used cedar blocks or balls that you get in the closet organization section of K-Mart or Wal-Mart. They’re inexpensive, smell good, and seem to work well (at least over the last 10 years … no bugs so far!). Not ever been tempted to put feathers in my mouth, but have been known to lick my fingers to smooth down “something” as needed. Still trying to break myself of that habit!!
You are absolutely right. I will start changing the water before each tying session. While I don’t intentionally lick my fingers, there are a ton of ways to transfer nasty critters into your system and brewing up a special tea of dead animal cells certainly provides the perfect breeding ground.
As far as wetting the feathers, you can get one of those sponges that sit in a small dish that people use to wet their fingers for handling paper etc. Simply hold the feather down on the sponge with your finger and draw the feather out while pressing it gently into the sponge. This also works great when pairing up feathers to streamer wings.
I did the cedar block thing and cloves for years. Monthly I would sand down the cedar blocks and reoil them. Then one day I found bug casings in the bottom of the bags of two of my jv hen capes. I bagged all my materials and not just the capes and placed them in my freezer (my wife was not happy) for about a month. I then hand washed all my capes and hides in Woolite and air dried the lot. I bought all new containers and added about a dozen mothballs to each container. Now I read that mothballs may not be enough. I sure wish the cedar blocks and cloves worked. I have to go outside to open my containers and then transfer the items I need to another container which I then leave outside for a week to air. Even then, I tend to get a headache after about an hour of tying in a room with an open window. I sure hope you can continue to use cedar. The alternative is not pleasant.
It’s a repellent, not an insecticide, and it is supposed to be non-toxic to humans. Might work for preventing bugs if you don’t already have them.
Did a little research on Pyrethrins, and found this on Wikipedia:
“Pyrethrins are neurotoxins that attack the nervous systems of all insects. When present in amounts not fatal to insects, they still appear to have an insect repellent effect. They are harmful to fish, but are far less toxic to mammals and birds than many synthetic insecticides.”
Probably not a good match for your Fly Tying materials.
Like Rick Z, I have an adversion to moth balls as they give me a terrible headache in about 10 seconds. So I switched to cedar as a bug repellant. I’ve had pretty good success with the exception of one time ants got into a container that I had not closed properly. My fault. The sticky mess they left all went into the trash without any attempt to rescue anything.
As a wood worker (sort of), a few years ago, I refinished an antique cedar chest as a gift for my daughter. Since this chest was well over 50 years old, even sanding the wood didn’t result in much cedar fragrance. To remedy this, I purchased a pint of cedar oil extract to freshen up the smell. Since almost everything I do goes through a “Can I use this in fly tying?” filter in my mind, I decided to try it out as a bug repellent. I put a cotten ball soaked in this cedar oil in a film container with holes punched in the top. To prevent the possibility of the film container from tipping over and leaking the oil out, I taped the film container to the inside of the Tupperware containers I store my materials in. Now I have very strong cedar oil smell for bug prevention that seems to be working well for me. I hardly ever have to replenish the cedar oil, but it takes me about 30 seconds to add an eye dropper full to the cotten ball if I think I need it. The cedar oil costs around $12.00 for a pint which should last somewhere around 30 years.
. . . strong cedar oil smell for bug prevention that seems to be working well for me. I hardly ever have to replenish the cedar oil, but it takes me about 30 seconds to add an eye dropper full to the cotten ball if I think I need it. The cedar oil costs around $12.00 for a pint which should last somewhere around 30 years.
Jim Smith
Excellent, Jim. Many thanks.
What are some of the retailers that carry the cedar oil, by the way?