Using first homegrown bucktail
 

A buddy of mine is close with a meatcutter who does most of the commercial butchering of wildlife in the area, and he brought me several good size tails a few weeks ago. Well, I cleaned the tendon out of the tail and salted it, and tonight used my first really long hair off the first one that dried completely. Three of the tails were really long and consequently they have really long hair. The other I kind of butchered, if you know what I mean, and the hair on them is slightly shorter, but still very usable. I found that I need a belly knife that I can run up the sides of the tendon inside the tail. You know one that has that little recurve blade on the end of the knife. That way, instead of cutting away from myself I can pull the blade toward me while holding the other end of the tail and cut up against the tenden, and underneath the skin. I will be having the opportunity to get many more tails and I believe I will give it another whurl. Maybe I will even try dying a few some of my favorite colors. This butcher does most of the road kills and when hunters go out of state to hunt they have their kills shipped to this guy. I have to find a particular kind of salt that taxidermist use that is supposed to dry the you know what out of the tails real quick. Whe I get ahold of that special salt I'll go at it at a quicker pace. Does anyone else do their own?

I find that a small sharp knife works best, not a zipper knive. It is much easier to control the cut. I also skin out the tail bone from the top (dark hair side). You don't need any special salt. Use kosher salt for drying and Borax (laundry aisle) for drying and killing bugs.
When freshly skinned, the skin has some translucency, making it easy to see where the white hair meets the dark. I use an Exacto knife to cut along this line from the skin side so it can be stored by color.

I just use a knife to cut around the tail bone about a half inch down.then I pull the tail bone out fill ,then fill the tail with salt and let dry, when it's dry I wash with water an a little bleach,just a little bleach or the hair will become brittle.

now that works for me,I tryed to dye some and I find it's a lot harder than it looks. good luck,the small tails are great for jigs.

You might send Fishwomen a pm she did a real good job on the ones she got in P.A.

I'm gonna go take one of my used-up bucktails, bury it in the backyard, and see if I can grow a bucktail tree. :laughs:

I think the salt is borax.