trimming spun deer hair is something i tried, and simply hated, because my heads turn out like shit, and then i had a huge mess to clean up. your's looks pretty good though!
The thing most guys forget to do when working deer hair is, packing-packing-packing, one bunch of hair after another. Well formed DH heads can only be acheived when the hair is packed in very tight. It took me awhile to realize that, but once you get it those heads will look, and work right. Just keep at it. As far as the mess sb32 mentions, well just no way around that. Here is a pic of a fly I did that has the DH spun on a size 3 barrel swivel, not perfect, first time I tried it on a barrel swivel, but it'll do. LB
I think the thing that dorked me over were the eyes. I think the next time I do this, I'll spin some hair, pack, and THEN put on the eyes instead of putting the eyes on first.
When I tie sex dungeons, I tie in the collar without incorporating the butts for the head (trim them, as Galloup suggests). Then I place the eyes followed by the spun hair. When spinning the hair adjacent to the eyes, I keep the pieces very long so that they'll cover the eyes and collar, allowing you to maintain a wide head when trimming. Contrary to above, I do not pack the hair tightly for subsurface streamers as even with the weight of the eyes and a sinking line it will want to float like a cork. You're just going for profile with the deer hair to produce that broad sculpin head appearance.
Good advise riseform...thanks. Seems I was on the right track with the eyes. Haven't been packing these hardly at all for exactly why you suggest. I'll have to incorporate your fuller collar...I like that.
Good point I guess, not to be contrary, but then why use a material that has natural flotation at all? wool will give the same broad profile and absorbs water like a sponge. LB
I would assume that the reason why is because the deer hair tends to make the fly more nuetral boyant so that it glides thru the water at the depth you let it gradually sink too vice dragging across the bottom.
True, but wool won't give you that nice collar profile and it won't easily shake water off on the back cast, enabling an easy and accurate forward cast. The down side of deer hair is indeed the buoyancy factor considering we're imitating a bottom hugging fish. My sculpin box is split pretty evenly between wool and deer hair heads.
