Deer Hair

[jgar251]

Hello, I have been tying more and more deer hair poppers and such and was wondering if anyone "tanned" their own deer hide? I just shot a doe and was thinking about using both the tail and some of the hide. Any suggestions on what parts of the deer are best and how to do this would be greatly appreciated. Also what is the difference between belly hair and regular hair?

Thank you

[fishinbub]

I've never tanned a skin, but you can clean them up pretty good with rock salt. Tack it down to a board, with fur side down, and give a liberal covering of rock salt. Leave it for about a week and you should be good to go. I'd freeze it for a few weeks to make sure there are no bugs hiding in the fur. For the tail just cut the bone out and treat with salt.

[PastorBob]

You may want to consider 20 Mule Team Borax rather than just Rock Salt. (And pre-cut the pieces to manageable sizes (8" x 10" as a suggestion). Good luck

[DoubleHaul]

If you are doing a thick skin (deer & the like) just to keep the hair, raw hide is good enough. Borax is great for cleaning it & a final dry out. Kosher salt works well in the initial stages to draw the bulk of the moisture out while the hide is fresh. I can't stress how important it is to flesh the hide well. Clean every bit of the subcutaneous fat off. I did a buck skin years ago (total hair removal). I didn't tan it but rather used oil and a fleshing board to soften & preserve it. Turned out nice but way more work than it was worth. Get a hold of Dcarp if you really want to get it done right. He is always fooling around with that stuff.

[dcarp]

Jgar251,

I'd follow Doublehaul's advice on preserving the skin. Salt it good to pull out the moisture and get all the fat, meat and "other" gunk off of it as soon as possible. If you're not able to do the "dirty work" soon enough, just freeze it good, then thaw when you're ready to work on it.

Personally, I use a mix of salt and borax to dry my hides, then process with the Van Dyke's Lutan F tanning kit. It comes with a pickling agent, tanning mix and finishing oil. Good instructions come with it as well.

As far a what "parts" of the hide to use ... I say ... ALL of it! The tail for streamers, steelhead hairwings and saltwater baitfish imitations. The belly hair (white) is great spinning hair and can be dyed in various colors. The body hair can be used for muddler heads, humpy backs and wings, stimulator wings, hopper underwings, Wulff split wings, Goddard caddis bodies, etc. etc. The hock (legs) are usually short, fine and dense and make great wings for comparadun style flies.

Bleach it, dye it, spin it or use it for wings and bodies on 100's of patterns.

Read more about deer hair (and other big and small game hair) on my blog at http://blog.riverwoodfliesonline.com/?page_id=77

Tight Lines!

[DoubleHaul]

Don't forget the ears. they have some really neat hairs and work great as an alternative to a hares mask.

[gofishin]

I would give Charlie Craven a call. One of the best tyers around!!!!. Charliesflybox.com