Deer Hair

[VaCrappieMan]

I found some deer belly hair last time I was at Bass Pro and thought it looked pretty good. I was just curious if anyone ever used much deer hair for crappie jigs.

[snake River]

yes I do and we do custom dye work on the air. It is fantastic. Looking makes terrific looking jigs.

[VaCrappieMan]

Do you use the bucktail or any part of the deer? I thought the belly hair would be pretty good since its shorter and I fish with primarily smaller jigs..

[revtoby]

I find the belly hair is more hollow witch causes it to flair with little thread tension... I like bucktail on saltwater jigs and use them on occasion for crappie jigs.. I use the tips of the BT.

[M_a_c_k]

Haven't used much bucktail but have worked with squirrel tail and it seems nice, But yeah the deer tails are nicer to work with since they are longer.

[STUMP HUNTER]

I find the belly hair is more hollow witch causes it to flair with little thread tension... I like bucktail on saltwater jigs and use them on occasion for crappie jigs.. I use the tips of the BT.

I don't use but a little of the belly hair when tying with it. The body hair will make a nice looking jig and when it gets wet the jig will look more like a shad body. Makes a very nice jig and doesn't have a wire look to it. Bucktail jigs are very good jigs to use and has its place. Last time I fished I used some bucktail and marabou jigs. The marabou has been the better jig until that trip when the bucktail out fished the feather. It's good to have some different jigs with you as sometimes the fish gets picky at what they want.

[snake River]

I do not use deer tails I never did like them for tying but I do like the belly or the back of the deer they make excellent jigs and like I said you could die the for any color you want and it is awesome looking we get the hides for nothing and dry them out and precede to do dye work on them. We will try to post some pictures of this.

[skiptomylu]

The single biggest thing fly tyers use that for is spinning deer hair and boy that is kind of an art in it self. Most that use buck tials fo tails on flies and jigs though. However there is nothing that says you can't use it for tails on jigs, but learn how to spin deer hair and make some jigs like that. I warn you thought that is not so easy to learn and even harder to trim right or at least that was my experience doing that. I can do it, but some guys are so good at that I can't imagine how they can be so specific with eyes and even multi-colors in and around the eyes. They make poppers out of that too.

If you want I can post some pictures for you about that.

Skip

[VaCrappieMan]

Awesome, would love to see a pic of a finished jig with the deer belly hair... I was thinking about what Toby said in regards to the hair being hollow... Would this cause the jig to fall slower?

[smoothlures]

The belly hair will flare out and won't look very nice if you're not spinning it. Not very fun to try to use as tail material but if you like it, go for it.

Bucktail works but it's so much longer so you waste a lot for a crappie sized jig. I just use kiptail for hair jigs.