Spinning Deer Hair and a Floating Bullet Head

[DanMarino]

Here are my attempts to spin some deer hair and make a floating bullet head darter.

Top two photos are the same fly. It has a moose mane tail and mule deer head.





This is a moose mane darter with some olive icelandic wool added.

[DanMarino]

I'm going to trim the hump down on that top fly and shorten the tail.
Over the weekend I spun a few other bugs and will post photos when I'm finished.

[Mark]

Nice work, Tom.

I never mastered spinning deer hair. The main thing I didn't like about it is that with use the deer hair absorbed water and eventually got heavier to cast. That's when I turned to foam which always floats high and remains light. But deer hair makes a very attractive fly.

If you leave the slope on those flies they will dive when you retrieve them and then float back to the surface. That's a good attractant. I used a foam version similarly cut this past Saturday and caught a few small bass a crappie with it.

A.jpg B.jpg D.jpg

[silasvirus82]

Do you have a packer? The main issue I see is the hair is sparse and not tightly packed. When packed tight you will not have the absorption issues that Mark mentioned. Also, use Kevlar thread so you can pull hard while spinning and not worry about breaking. They keys are strong thread with as few wraps as possible, tightly pulled and stacked.

[DanMarino]

Thanks for the feedback guys. This is fun and I need to get a packer and more supplies with lots more practice.

[silasvirus82]

Another tip, don't wrap any thread at the base of your hair section. Hair stacked on a bare hook slides (packs) better than with thread at the base.

[Mark]

Do you have a packer? The main issue I see is the hair is sparse and not tightly packed. When packed tight you will not have the absorption issues that Mark mentioned. Also, use Kevlar thread so you can pull hard while spinning and not worry about breaking. They keys are strong thread with as few wraps as possible, tightly pulled and stacked.

Yes. I have a packer so it's likely a matter of my poor technique. It takes a while to properly spin, pack and trim hair. Alternatively, I can cut foam and glue it to a hook much faster to produce a proven fish catcher. A purest I'm not. Flies are expendable in my view. They rarely last as long as a lure so I don't like to spend the time on them that I do on jigs and bucktails. If I can't tie an effective fly quickly, most within 5 minutes, I seek alternative materials and techniques until I can. However, a nicely tied deer hair popper is a work of art -- almost too pretty to use in my opinion.