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not sure if there are any posts on this topic yet. my question is which do you guys prefer? which gives a better presentation ? which holds up better after catching multiple fish? Is one better than the other at certain times of the year. I haven't tried bucktail yet but I still have a whole hide in the freezer I was planning on tanning . give me your 2 cents on what you prefer. just got started tying so trying to learn in the beginning before I waste a lot of money on materials.
I use both. It all depends on what I'm tying. Neither is a good substitute for the other. Don't paint yourself in a corner. This hobby isn't about saving money. That being said, if Bucktail is what you have, I'd ty a bunch of clousers.
Do do you plan on dyeing the Bucktail?
Marabou isn't expensive. I'd buy white and use markers to embellish if I didn't want to buy a variety of colors.
Just use a little of both and you're all set :)
Realize that bucktail is only the tail hair but you can use the body hair on flies or jigs if it is long enough for the tye you are tying. What it great about tying with bucktail is the different size jigs/flies you can tie. I tie some that are 5'' long and other that are 2'' long. Each jig has its uses and these two materials all far apart but in the same since can be used the same way. Confused yet, don't be. The best way to lean what materials do is to tie them and get them in the water so you can see the movement of the tails.
Personally I never use buck tail in my fishing! If I want a hair jig due to cold water I will go to kip tail or squirrel tails. For me marabou is about all I use in spring. Durability of marabou is not the greatest, but clearly good enough to catch over 100 crappie on same jig! That should be you breaking point on a material.
For me hair jigs are for more cold water temps and when fish are not as aggressive, but once they get warmed up and the water warms they get more active and aggressive and that is the time for tail materials that move and have great action and for me nothing beats marabou and it really looks like it's swimming in the water!
Just a few points, but you can't judge materials by just a couple parts of the equation. The only way to know is try things your self, but pay attention to the reality of cold and warm water and colors used along with a lot of other things!
Skip
In my experience marabou is hard to bet all year long. I'm going to start with marabou every time.
Also makes a difference as to what fish you are targeting. Whitebass, Hybrids, like bucktails early and then turn to plastics. Crappie don't seem to like bucktail as much as marabou but will bite bucktail at times.
Sometimes one works, sometimes the other works, and sometimes they both work!
I've used nothing but chenille for forty years. However ... I think you could make some really good crappie jigs with bucktail.
In my lifetime, I've not seen a lot of "revolutionary" flies, but one that might fit the bill is the Clouser Minnow. It's 100% bucktail (plus a little krystal flash), and it basically a light jig. It's caught fish all over the world.
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Sure that Clouser Minnow has been the standard for that kind of fly for sure and on the same lines is the Crappie Candy Fly is Bucktail which I have tied a ton of them for guys and threaten to use them my self if I could keep my self lined out on fly fishing in spring, just too hard for me to put down my Roadrunners, LOL! I have timed a lot of bucktail jigs for guys crappie fishing up North especially and they seem to do right well with them!
Skip
Actually Bucktail and Marabou!
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I think marabou is a great material for crappie, and believe it or not the tail hair of these smaller southern deer make some very good crappie catching bucktail jigs. There is a guide on kerr lake Va. that almost exclusively casts and retrieves these jigs over brush piles. He uses the finer hair on these local deer tails and doe tails are even better, anyway his nickname is fishdoc, and he boats literally thousands of crappie every year, the bait he uses consists of a 3/32 collared head with the barb cut off, not painted, red 210 flat waxed thread and a semi sparse wing of about 2 inches. google fishdocs crappie bucktails. I made some of these bucktail jigs for a friend who lives down there and he catches a lot of his crappies by deadsticking the bucktail next to the pilings of the bridges in the summer and winter, I got him on the sickle hooks too and he loves me for it.