I don’t really use all that much, but I do have one customer that wants his jig to be no more than 2" long including head and tail. Now when I cut the with bucktail to the right length I have more that I am trowing away than I am using. Now what is left is not a nice tapered hair like the ends I am using, but is there some other use I can apply and should I save it for anything?
Skip
Hi,
I’ve used bucktail hairs for wrapping bodies. One pattern I’ve tied up is to use one strand of dark moose body hair and a red strand of dyed bucktail to tie up a mosquito pattern (normally one dark and one white moose hair). This mosquito is one that has fed already!
Anyway, they make for nice bodies and you can do two tone (like above) easily. They may require a coat of cement to protect them. Of course, you won’t need that many hairs in reserve for this as each fly will only use one or two strands.
Hi Skip,
I hate to waste any material when I’m fly tying. I think this most come from those early childhood days of desperately searching the house for materials and never having enough stuff to tie flies with in the first place. The only really effective use I’ve found for recycled bucktail is beetle backs humpty style. Tie a pretty good of used bucktail on to the top of the hook shank with the excess hanging over the bend of the hook. Tie it down well. Bend the excess back toward the eye and tie it down and trim it like you would an Elk Hair Caddis. It makes a simple, effective fly but I’m not sure how jig colors are going to match beetle colors. Good luck. 8T 
Well these are mostly white and I thought about getting back at learning spinning better or maybe some kind of wing. I like your idea though for sure.
I cut my neck hackle using the tip for part of the tail on my jigs and then I cut the rest of it every 14" or so and use the little V’s so stack on top of the tip and then squeeze them all together and tie that in for my tail. Love the tip feather and then the spike hair looking feathers from the V combined. I even save the rest of the feather as I think something good will come of them too so I save most every piece to use again too.
JeffHamm I like tat idea as well and as long as this stuff is I just figure something could be used some way.
Thanks guys,
Skip
sometimes i use cutoff bucktail leftovers and usem fer spinner wings… i also use it for tying crawfish paterns…
Thanks, I had thought about some type wing maybe, but didn’t have a good idea yet. I like the crayfish idea too. I guess it will also go to good use if I do some deer hair spinning learning. I have only tied like 3 things doing or should I say trying to do that and don’t quite have it down to my expectations.
Thanks again,
Skip
Spinning seems the logical way to utilise a whole bunch of hair, but how do you go picking it all up and stacking etc… Could be more trouble than its worth maybe? I’m not sure if you are having this hair still attached to the skin or in a loose bunch on your lap here! If its on the skin I’d try to spin it I think or use it as a beetle back, or legs even.
Skip,
If you are using Buck’tail’ for these jigs, and what you have left over is the butt section of the bucktail, then it won’t work well for spinning.
Deer ‘body’ hair is what is used for spinning/flaring and then trimming into bass bugs and such. Deer body hair is hollow, and when compressed it will flair out from the point of compression. Tail hair doesn’t do that (some areas down near where the tail attaches to the body will flare, but not well).
Use your bucktail butts for shellbacks, spider bodies, underwings, crawdad pinchers/mouthparts, and legs on nymphs and hoppers, that sort of thing. It can make good bouyant underbodies as well.
Probably lots of other things you’ll figure out if you give it some time and thought.
White bucktail takes Sharpie type markers well, so you can shade/color it as you wish after you tie the fly.
Buddy
In my opinion you titled your thread properly “bucktail WASTE” For me it would just be too much time and trouble to save and sort waste material. Just charge your customer an extra 10cents and be done with it.
Just my opinion
Tom
Somebody, maybe on this board, uses all of his (or her) deer hair and bucktail waste to mix into some dubbing to make very buggy-looking bodies on some flies. They would chop it up and blend it with the dubbing.
Joe
Skip;
I would think that the waste you are describing would be an awesome material for various SHWAPF patterns. (look here http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/beginners/part9.php to see more.)
These flies (in various colors) catch many gills, crappie and bass for me each and every year. I wonder sometimes why I even try other patterns. Guess that is what Al was thinking when he came up with the pattern. . . .
Thanks everyone!
My waste that made me ask this question is pretty long. I have a customer that likes bucktail jigs and wants them exactly 2" long in total.
All are using White and when I cut the hair off the hide and get it as even as I can on the point end and cut it to fit his 2" jig total including the head it leaves a nice long bit of hair to either save and use or throw it away. It seems like such a waste to do that since a most of it is 2"-4" long. His first order I just dumped it, but this time I am saving it in a zip lock. It is making a pretty big bunch of deer hair since he wanted 50 3/8 oz. jigs. Now I regret not keeping it from his first 40 he ordered.
So thanks for any tips on how to use this stuff and I think there will be enough to try them all, LOL!
Skip
Hi Jeff -this mosquito pattern sounds good - are you able to share the pattern? Can you use anything other than white Moose Hair - I do not have that.
Jeanne
here is a crawfish & some spent wing moths i done using bucktail leftovers…
http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff231/bugman9/SNV30246.jpg
http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff231/bugman9/SNV30256.jpg
i put all my bucktail leftovers in a small bag so they can be stacked with a hair stacker more easy