Never one to pass up a perceived value, I purchased a beautiful mink collar just because I liked the pelt. It’s about 5" x 32" overall. Total cost? a whopping $2 at a garage sale. Is this good for fly tying?
I found the same thing at a budget store for just about the same price. I don’t know where they are now, but if I still had them I’d use the hair for tailing material on small dries, or wings on very small Trudes. You may be able to cut it in thin strips and use it for bunny (mink) leeches.
Back in my beginning fly tying days I got tons of mink scraps from the furriers I knew. It yielded the best reddish brown underfur I could ask for which is great for nymph bodies for our eastern Hendrickson or any other reddish brown nymph.
I also makes great red ant bodies. Just pull out the guard hairs which is decent tailing material BTW. It also dyes and bleaches well.
Truth be known, he drove past an aged hooker in downtown Cleveland & yanked it away from her & tossed 2 bucks at her as he sped away!!
Mikey
Send it to me Joe. I will then tell you what it is good for.
Your friendly fishbum
Joe -
It should make super zonker streamers, especially if you can bleach and die it without ruining the hair. I’ve got a very simple and effective pine squirrel zonker streamer which I’m sure you could do with the mink just as it is, for a small baitfish style fly. If it will bleach and die, you could do smaller double bunny streamers, and a killer sculpin streamer ( which is the color I use on the pine squirrel ) which is about as simple as it gets.
If you cross cut it, you can do a different style streamer, more like a bunny leech, as suggested above.
If you want a narrative about the streamer, let me know.
John
Joe,
Use a fur rake or dubbing rake to get the underfur and some guard hair for dubbing, and as mentioned, use the guard hairs for tails and wings on small flies.
You can make a dubbing rake by epoxying a 1/2" to 1" length of hacksaw or jig saw blades to a dowel (so it looks like a yard rake). Different teeth per inch yields different dubbing. Mike Conner let me in on this great tip.
Mink is very nice for making fry and other streamers, such as this one:
http://home.planet.nl/~westb001/Martsminkymuddler.html
And there’s the Minky: dub a silver body, lash a mink strip on top of the body, matuka style, and add two stick-on eyes.
Have fun!
Mart
I guess it’s worth what I paid for it. I’ve committed 1/2 of the colar to a friend of mine who ties daily, and with the rest I’ll try some of your ideas. Thanks for the feedback.
Oh, and ohiotuber’s description of the acquisition process comes from his many years in the red light district of Cleveland. He told me he was evangelizing the girls to save their souls, but I think we all know better. “Hey Mikey, why do the girls keep calling you John?”
Your Friend,
Joe
Not too bad, Bread Boy! :rolleyes:
Time for you to go back to your “vice” & practice your “whip” finish.
Mikey
I’m always checking out thrift stores for bits of fur like the one you scored. I once found a whole vest in white rabbit, with some RIT dye I now have an almost endless supply of dubbing and zonker strips.
My current favorite pattern for the mink is John Barr’s ‘slump buster’
It’s a killer pattern on some of my local waters…
http://www.charliesflyboxinc.com/flybox/detail.cfm?parentID=37
I like tying with mink and I also like one-material flies.
Here’s a nymph that I’ve had some luck with.
The Zink Mink originated by Ruth Zink
Tail - Guard hair
Abdomen - dubbed mink under-fur
Thorax - dubbed underfur with guard hair (I like it to look good and spikey when done)
head - thread
Enjoy!
Ed
Yes, it’s worth the price!!! Please send me a 5 X 12 inch piece, and I will send you back, a doz. two tone RS2’s! :lol:
That Charlie Craven is a great tyer. Wish he still posted here.
I also miss Charlie’s posts on this board. You can still get his input if you post questions on his forum however.
He is an amazing guy, with all the stuff he does (guiding, owning and managing an outstanding fly shop, teaching tying classes, giving tying demonstrations at fly shows, running his own web site, making those outstanding on-line fly tying tutorials, and recently publishing a new book on fly tying, commercial tying and oh ya, raising some kids too!)
I’m amazed he even has time to fish anymore!
With all this going on I can still drop by the shop he will sit down at the vice and show me how to tie some pattern I’m fumbleing with.
He’s a great guy, glad to have meet him.
I have a few scraps of mink in various colours and now use it (guard hairs and all) for GRHE which I guess become GRMs. Really nice fur to work with.
A Canadian tier developed a nymph using this material a number of years ago - she did not include a wingcase - and since her name was Ruth Zink, it became a Zink Mink. It is in be book “The World’s Best Trout Flies” by John Roberts; 1995.
A small strip is also good for a Gary Borger ‘Strip Nymph’ - sort of a WB variation - which imitates a Hexegenia. (On a 3906 size 14 tie a rough body of mink with a peacock wingcase - the tail is mink and as long as the body - the tail undulates like the nymph swims.)
FISHBUM—I could send you a frozen MUSKRAT
I have an old pack of dubbing made by Davy Wotton called SLF Minky Dubbing. I don’t know if the dubbing is actually mink fur or not but the fact it’s called “Minky Dubbing” suggests to me that mink has got to a pretty fair dubbing material. I’ve never heard of dubbing, real or not, named “aircraft cable dubbing.” Just a thought! 8T
The Minky dubbing is described as "pure mink underfur blended with a touch of sparkle, matched to the best dry fly colors. Wapsi manufactures the dubbing and it comes in 24 colors. The pack I have is Light Cahill (very nice color too) so the fur must be bleached from its normal hue. Sorry, should have looked at the back of the pack before I posted, but then again, that would have suggested forethought and planning. 8T