Anyone else get complaints about your fly tying room “Smelling bad”?
my Parents complain a LOT about it smelling dead and has a “Dead feeling” when you walk in the room.
I keep my old stinky fishing & hiking boots nearby. Then the fly tying daed smell is not so noticeable.
Seriously, I keep some “raw” furs & feathers around, but you absolutely MUST ensure that they are kept in airtught containers (zip-lock bags, tupperware type food containers, etc.). I also keep a lot of cedar around (cedar chips and cedar balls and blocks). That will surely help. Smells way better than mothballs.
Maybe a bath once in a while…
If it smells dead, your tanning skills leave something to be desired. Or else you forgot a starling skin under the bed.
Try to locate the offending material and isolate it in sealed container with some borax to deodorize. If something is rotting you may just want to salvage what you can and then throw it out.
I just change my socks after receiving the complaint and I am good to go for another month or two :),
TomS,
Sometimes I buy material that still has too much fat (grease) on the inside of the skin. Place some folded newsprint (not the advertising inserts) to absorb extra moisture and grease. Make sure to be generous with the use of paper. After you remove the paper, throw it away. It cannot be recycled into napkins/paper towels after sucking the grease out of a cape or squirrel hide. 
Ed
TomS,As a parent,you might want to clean up the room.
I have cleaned my room and have nothing rotting at the moment in my room, the smell is gone now 
but what about the Dead feeling?
All you need to get rid of that is some good fishing! Luke
Or an exorcist.
It’s is not possible to exorcise teenagers. You just have to wait till they grow out of it.
Replace the burned-out light bulbs and quit laying around like a shipwrecked corpse (a la the cartoon strip Zits).
If that doesn’t work, you might have to resort to something like a <gasp> live plant in your room.
If that doesn’t work, take you girlfriend in there for long periods of time with the door closed and locked. Then they’ll be afraid that there is entirely too much life going on in there…
Ed, an old bachelor
lol EdD live plants scare me and I have no GF at the moment
uhhh, NO. My wife doesn’t particularly like the way bucktails smell, but that’s about it. Might want to check for dead bodies and other rotten stuff under the floor boards before blaming the tying materials ???
This reminds me of the time my living room smelled like that. Cleaned everything, couldn’t figure it out. When I moved out, I emptied a bookcase and discovered a mummified tree frog behind it.
A little “Friend of the Devil” or “Sugar Magnolia” will help the Dead feeling.
Mike
Swamp Witch Betty strikes again.
Ed
TomS,
i find that bucktails tend to be the worst culprits for stinky tying materials, other problem can sometimes be a moth/beetle infestation…that can ruin your day real quick, go an get some rubbermaid containers sized to accommodate your materials, for instance try to keep all your dry fly capes{necks} and saddles {dry fly}in one container in thier original zip lock bags take two paper towels an place on the skin side between the cardboard and skin …make sure air is out of the bags and zipped closed completely.
next time you are at staples buy a labeling machine like a brothers p touch an label you boxes accordingly, also do this for your wet fly hen capes and saddles, bucktails ect. try using moth crystals inside of each container an periodically replace or add more crystals,you can also use cedar chips ,flea collars from pets ect to keep the bugs out, cedar adds a nice scent compared to moth balls/crystals …but IMHO moth crystals/balls work the best.
also keep your other materials in boxes an label em…makes for easier location and also when putting em away.
you can also buy a small bottle of essential oil in your favorite scent…like lavender or balsam spruce…even cedar oil and put a few drops on a unscented bounce sheet and yer room will smell awesome.
hope this helps
Rick Wallace
Take a freakin’ shower, Tommy!
Oh Zac… I just took one 3 years ago come on!
I have 4 deer tails,squirrel hides, opossum patch,starling,(That’s just what I’ve dryed)
and yes DG they’re really dryed 