Went to the SWE show and the flytyers had picked over the bucktails. I was looking for a primo chartreuse and they were gone.
Getting difficult to find good bucktail these days.
FishHawk

watch the bst forum later fishhawk. i have probably close to 1000 tails here...all colors.

Scott,
I have a few needs....got vise for saltwater hooks? you still have my cell? Ross

That was just the leading edge of our bucktail order. There will be more to choose from soon.

I talked to several of the tyers last weekend, all felt coast wide the quality and selection of bucktail has faded. No one really knows why though.

My guess is it's just simple economics, there's less fly tyers overall so at the production end there's not as much motivation to cut, prep, and dye a bucktail the way they used to, which is a big part of a "good" bucktail.

One thing everyone agreed on is that we all got spoiled. You can still find "good" if not exceptional (in the grand scheme of things) bucktail. And there's surely plenty of greasy, short, stinky, stiff haired tails around. Just not the freaks we were enjoying a few years ago.

It's more likely, I think, to be a growing shortage of hunters. ....
since there is a certain amount of venison farming being done, we may have to look to those farmers for bucktail in the near future.
PS whomever I talked to at SWE, in phoning in an order a week ago, was extremely knowledgeable.

Hmmm, genetic bucktails :drool:

Well, why not?

Maybe an enterprising venison farmer will come up with a great tasting buck that carries a perfect tail ?

I once cut some of the nice, long, silky white hair from the tail of my wife's dog for tying. It wasn't pretty, but I avoided alimony.

http://www.striped-bass.com/Stripertalk/showthread.php?t=38081
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The four I got were awesome quality

Hmmm, genetic bucktails :drool:

Well, why not?

Maybe an enterprising venison farmer will come up with a great tasting buck that carries a perfect tail ?

We thought for sure that's what was going on about 5 years ago.

I have a few tails at the shop that you simply wouldn't believe. Real, actual 8 to 9" hair in the mid section, not just the base.

Of course, we've combed and measured a mind boggling number of bucktails over the years, so you would expect to find at least a few extreme genetic freaks.

I use to have a Golden Retriever until she had to be put down. This plus RIT dye worked ok. You couldn't really notice from a distance that sections of her tail hair were missing:hihi:

I was thinking of ordering a hundred tails at a whack and dyeing them to the few colors I mostly use just so I would get enough of a percentage of primo tails to use for teasers out of each hundred. I m giving it serious thought. I could have my pick of the best of each hundred and also control the color quality.