I visited a fur shop on my lunch break on Friday and came away with a grocery bag full of all sorts of furs on the hide. The bag included several shades of mink, racoon, beaver, coyote, fox and some others that I can’t identify.
The question: What can this interesting assortment of furs be used to tie? It seems that there is potential for both guard hair and underfur creations. Any advice will be appreciated. (95% of my fishing is for trout.)
raclay,
You hit the jackpot. I have friends who are furriers and I get a lot of cut offs from their garment business. You are limited only by your imagination as to the use of the goodies. If nothing else, you can make up some excellent dubbing, but there’s also winging material, etc.
REE
some of the longer stiff guard hairs are great for dark tails
Cut Zonker strips.
Doug
Lol, a freind of ours is one of those people that mount things. I have Lion, polarbear, some strange kind of hair that is better than deer hair for tying, and it is in purple, but I also have some in yellow. The guy is really funny. When his boston terrier died, he put it in his freezer, and is going to mount it :lol:
A long time ago I stayed in a small resort near Livingston Montana. There was a mounted polar bear in the main Lodge. We were sitting there eating dinner and the owner yelled real loud! His CAT was climbing the bear! :lol:
Polar bear fur is translucent and I prefer it to bucktail.
Doug
man i wish there was a place around here where i could get fur scraps…
Polar bear is illegal to have because of its endangered species status.
Either they banned it a while ago, or they are still legal to hunt, polar bear can be legalized.
JZ
Book your hunt today! http://www.polarbearhunting.net/ I reckon that would be some expensive fly tying material!
WOW!
Polar bear is illegal to have because of its endangered species status.
Olny pre-ban Polar Bear is legal to have in the US and if you have Polar Bear it is more than likely pre-ban, as they have not allowed Polar Bear past customs since the ban. I have some polar Bear that I traded someone here in the US for and it would have to be pre- Ban so I dont worry about it.
Polar bear is not endangered, not illegal and not exactly banned in the US. It is protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 which also protects seal, whales and certain species of tuna (go figure it’s a product of our legal system). The act made it illegal to take marine mammals within the jurisdiction of the US and to import marine mammal products into the US. Howevever any products that were here prior to 1972 were granfathered in and can still be posessed. There is one dealer in the US who posesses a license to deal in polar bear. He cuts up old rugs and sells the pieces to fly tiers. You can buy legal polar bear from one of the site sponsors at bearlodgeangler.com. The MMPA of 1972 also allowed for a US hunter with a valid Canadian permit to hunt polar bear to obtain a USFWS license to bring back the skin of a bear that was taken in Canada. I think that may be history as the act has been amended several times since 72. It is legal for native peoples of Alaska to sell craft items made from marine mammal products. If you have ever visited Anchorage AK, there are many gallaries dealing in items made from whale bone, baleen, polar bear, seal etc.
Sadly, there is talk of listing the polar bear as an endangered species in the US. The recent changes in the earth’s climate have led to several seasons where little or no pack ice has formed in the Arctic. The polar bear makes his prime living by hunting seal through the Arctic pack ice and the species is just being devastated. I don’t know what that would mean, since the polar bear is already protected, what more could we do in the US? Shut down our coal burning power plants and trade our cars for horses?
Yak hair is an excellent substitute for polar bear. It even has some of that translucent quality to it. I was tying some flies up for a demonstration, and did one from my precious stock of old polar bear for comparison. Lost it amidst the yak flies and it then took me 1/2 an hour to figure out which one was the polar bear. DANBOB
i know of some furriers, and am good friends with a few taxidermists. How much do they charge for there scraps? Maybe i could even get some for free.
A friend gave me some taxidermy scraps and challenged me to tie things. Some of you have seen my zebra fish. I used zebra hide for the body and stiff hairs from nulguy to make fins and tail. Not exactly a fly to fish with. There was some odd buffalo-type wool in the bag and I’ve spun and trimmed that like you would yarn eggs and muddlers. Fox fur gives a nice life-like swimming appearance to sub surface patterns like streamers and nymphs, ditto coyote.
So what you’ve got to decide is what characteristics the scrap in hand exhibits and that will help you decide how to use it. Is it soft, stiff, coarse, fine, hollow, solid, short, long, wooley, bug colored, on flexible hide or stiff hide? Each of these will suggest different uses.
Warm Water,
I paid $5/lb. for the furs I bought. Three pounds (which I didn’t weigh) filled a full sized paper grocery bag and left me with an enormous lot of tying materials.