1. Troutnut Forum
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2. Fly Tying
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3. Good to have friends...

It's very nice to have friends who are waterfowl hunters!

Sweet! I have had folks supply me with Wood-Duck, but I've had way more say they were gonna and didn't.

I have a friend who ties at all the local shows. He stayed here with us one time and tied at a tying group we have in the winter. I was looking for a piece of Red Fox for Foxee Red Clousers and the Mixed Media. A couple weeks after he went home I was looking in one of my Tupperware containers and found he had left me a nice enough piece to keep me busy.

You are right. Good to have friends.

Spence

Awesome!

I wish I tied in college. I would duck hunt 2-5 days a week in the fall. Anytime before or after (or during when I had the itch) hunting season it was fishing.

Luckily when I started tying all I had to do was buy a vise, some thread, and a couple packs of hooks. My friend set me up with enough material to keep me busy for a long time. Let's just say I will need hooks many times before material.

It good to have good friends. The kind who are more excited than you that you are starting to tie. From my experience there are many great people like this in fly fishing.

Have fun with the new feathers!

Wow! I REALLY need to go duck hunting.

I had a friend who couldn't tie flies very well any more due to him be shaky. This spring he gave me a lot of his equipment and materials. That sure saved me a lot of money.

Eric,

I was just thinking aloud...Scary right?! :) Maybe you should segregate your "wild" woodduck for a bit from your other stash...Just to make sure there aren't any critters there that could ruin your other materials.

Everyone has their own way of doing this...Freezer, bug spray, moth balls???

Spence

I usually put them in my freezer at work. It gets pretty cold, -75C.

I am not normally a big fan of trusting a freezer to kill critters. I like some sort of chemical aswell (flea and tick collars)..... That being said, I cant see too many critters surviving -103F (-75C). Especially if the material is not flash frozen.

Not flash frozen, the freezers are used for killing mosquitoes for virus isolation.

I am a tad envious of you sir.

Nice. I have been a waterfowl hunter, and other critters so I'm well stocked with ... lotsa good stuff: deer and elk hair, cottontail fur and feet, snowshoe feet, squirrel, grouse, pheasant, duck, goose, turkey, starling, ...

Years ago I had a elderly neighbor retire to Florida and leave me his tying stuff that included duck wings, lotsa woodduck flank, polar bear, and a even some jungle cock.

I still have some polar bear a gentleman gave me when I was 12 yrs old.(I'm 44 now)

NICE! we all need friends like this! i just discovered a rooster farmer/pheasant hunter that i work with who supplied me with what seems like an endless supply of feathers to tie with. gotta love when someones hobby leaves yours cheaper! haha

Hmmm... I've never done anything to mine. By the time they've dried any critters would have died. At least I haven't had any issues there. I have had oils from fat not removed mat feathers. Gotta get all the fat scraped off.

Ha i know exactly how that feels. When i was living in Montana a couple good buddies of mine would hook me up with bird feathers, deer hide pieces, elk, bison hair - all sorts of great stuff! Its always nice to have friends in high places ha.. Pretty looking feathers.

Jess...Since you are recently a starving student :) and we are talking about fur and feathers, I have a story...In Big Rapids Michigan there is a college known as Ferris State. It has a surveyor program there, one of only two in the state. The other is at Michigan Tech in the UP.

I was told a story from a young ex-student from there back in the 80's...He and his pals all had small game licenses and feasted on squirrel, rabbit, grouse etc so they could reserve their funds for more important things than food...They spent their excess funds on beer. :)

Spence