The park I have been fishing out of has a carnival set up in it. I almost left as the only parking was a couple hundred yards from the water. That’s not bad going in but hard to carry out a bucket of fish. As I walked in the guy running the petting zoo was shearing a brown sheep. He said I could help myself to the wool so I combined two boxes of flies and filled one with wool. I did have to carry that heavy bucket of bluegills back out though. I have tied one nice looking brown nymph with the wool but I don’t know when I will try fishing it as the bluegills were attacking a yellow rubber spider today.
i love catching bluegills… congrats! nothing wrong w/ free fly tying material either i always have an eye out for it
On one of my walks I was witness to a squirrel donny-brook where I saw the end of one the participant’s tail come floating down out of the tree. When I got home, got to thinking about it and I went back and recovered that “piece of tail”. Of course, it’s now in my fly tying supplies, and I’ve since made up some streamers with some right smart looking tails on them … thanks be to those squirrels!
Be VERY careful with “unprocessed” materials. One bug infestation in our tying stuff was plenty enough for us.
…lee s.
p.s. Just got back from pestering BG’s at a farm pond…yes, what a hoot!
Lee, I do process materials that I get from hunting or other sources. I wouldn’t just throw something in my materials without washing it and quarantining it first. I don’t fumigate them but after the quarantine period and with chunks of flea collar changed in the boxes regularly I don’t feel I have to worry.
For my fly tying bin, in the feather & fur tray, separate from hooks, thread, and tools & misc trays, I keep a box of moth balls - It’s not open, but it sure permeates the air for that tray!
unless you wash it really well good luck getting it to sink. natural wool is loaded with lanolin and is naturally hydrophobic