'On the hunt' for materials...

[Steve F]

To echo TB's comments in another thread,

 

I have friends with a few hunting trips planned and I'd like them save me some tying materials!  Not sure what they hunt as of yet but I would assume duck/pheseant/turkey etc.   What should be done to preserve the materials?  I've heard of freezing to kill parasites and TB said something about borax for the skins.  Any links or suggestions?

[Aaron O]

Steve, Great question.  I was just thinking the same thing.  I have a friend of mine that gave me two buck tails that he had in the freezer and the only way I was informed to preserve it was to salt the meat end of the tail.  I am also keeping it hanging in my cold basement to better preserve it.   I'm sure this does work to an extent but is there a better way to preserve this?

[Jeffrey Silvan]

Consider beyond preservation: a lot if these fresh, wild pieces will have bugs too. You'll need to ensure you rid the pelts of those.

On Dec 31, 2012 1:57 PM, "Aaron O" <aa...@jorgeinc.com> wrote:

Steve, Great question.  I was just thinking the same thing.  I have a friend of mine that gave me two buck tails that he had in the freezer and the only way I was informed to preserve it was to salt the meat end of the tail.  I am also keeping it hanging in my cold basement to better preserve it.   I'm sure this does work to an extent but is there a better way to preserve this?

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[Danny Barrett]

I hunt a lot and keep many random materials for tying.  Personally I just put stuff some salt or any taxidermy chemicals i have on the skin side.  the most common one i use for taxidermy is borax.  But salt seems to do the trick, i just have an abundance of the borax laying around.  hope this helps

On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 1:36 PM, Steve F <spfb...@gmail.com> wrote:

To echo TB's comments in another thread,

 

I have friends with a few hunting trips planned and I'd like them save me some tying materials!  Not sure what they hunt as of yet but I would assume duck/pheseant/turkey etc.   What should be done to preserve the materials?  I've heard of freezing to kill parasites and TB said something about borax for the skins.  Any links or suggestions?

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[r...@robsnowhite.com]

Once a host is dead the parasites will jump ship and abandon the host in search of a new food source. Once the bird or mammal is dead most should be long one by the time you get the tails etc home. 

They are there to feed mostly on blood and thus not a harm to other tying materials. 

Freezing is more for moth and beetle (dermestid) infestation once the material has been cured. 

Sent from my iPhone

[ROBERT BISHOP]

Keep in mind that feathers usually have some blood in the main quill.  Friend of mine tells a story of sorting turkey feathers one night while watching TV and suddenly realizing the quills had maggots in them.  I imagine (but don't really know) that freezing them would dry the blood.   

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From: "R...@robsnowhite.com" <r...@robsnowhite.com>
To: "tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com" <tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} 'On the hunt' for materials...

[Jeffrey Silvan]

I also found parasites one time in a bucktail friend gave me after being preserved in the freezer in salt for about 3 months. Just be cautious and you should be fine.

[Steve F]

So as I see it, be sure to scrape as much meat/fat/sinew out of the hides as possible, douse liberally with borax, maybe throw it in the freezer for a couple days, and it should be good to go?  Or is there a curing/drying step that should happen in there as well?

[TurbineBlade]

Here's what I have thus far --

 

The 2 in front are roosters (pheasant) -- full skin.  Kept in freezer because I don't really know what to do with 'em.  Skinning is easy, I just had to select the ones with the head/neck not completely destroyed from pellets. 

 

The hen is out loose on the other picture there.  I'm getting a lot of marabou feathers, and some good soft hackles from the hen.  The ruddy-looking feathers in the 3 bags are actually one of my brother in-law's roosters that died (coyote or fox) on the farm a few weeks ago.  The head was trashed, but I got a lot of saddle hackles from him that I suspect would make decent woolly buggers.  Actually, the marabou has me pretty excited -- which I didn't really anticipate when I first grabbed them up. 

 

And of course the usual box of pheasant tails. 

 

I've tried to remove as much tissue as possible, and I've salted the stuff to dry it.  I'll probably keep a lot in the freezer when not in use just as a precaution. 

 

I'll try to bring some to the next tie so if anyone wants a few to mess around with, it's cool with me.  I pheasant hunt in MO every Christmas but I've never kept feathers until this year.  I bet I've tossed 30+ good skins that I wish I'd kept now!  ;) 

 

Thanks for the tips and info! 

 

I'll get some practice of my "pheasant and orange" soft hackles and smaller woolly buggers. 

 

Gene

[TurbineBlade]

[TurbineBlade]

[Carl Zmola]

The first steps are good, Scrape off as much fat/meat and borax (or
salt, but borax seems to do better).

Freeze for a week, let thaw for a week, freeze for a week, let thaw for
a week. Some bugs eggs will survive frozen, but the larva stages will
not. You want to give the eggs enough time to hatch so you can freeze
them again. Birds are notorious for ecoparisites and you don't want
bugs in your other fly tying material.

I usually microwave any wild/roadkill skins. It might damage hair or
feathers a bit, but I'm not willing to get bugs in my supplies.


Carl.

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Eric Leiser's Fly-Tying Materials, copy available here, http://bit.ly/ZScht6 and here http://amzn.to/ZScoVz