African Hides For Fly Tying?

African Waterbuck is my favorite dry fly tailing.

The various African ungulates have very different hair properties, I've found...unlike American ungulates, which seem to be variations on a common theme of "hollow hair, compresses and flares under tension, floats" with each of those aspects, as well as coloration, thickness, and length, in various combinations.

In contrast, I've found most of my pieces of African hide having more solid hair and thinner coats (probably due to the warmer climate eliminating much of the need for insulation). Hair tends to be solid, short, and fairly sparse, though. Definitely one of those areas where there's not much "established", so you're mostly in uncharted territory as it relates to tying applications.

When hides from Africa, Asia & South America were more available they were used more often. Mostly for wings, tails, antenna and such just as you might imagine.

As an example, looking through a 1948 Herter's catalog, I'm seeing Brazil Mouse Deer, Malayan Mountain Goat, African Barred Orange Baboon, Indian Mountain Capra (Capra is actually a whole genus of wild goat), Impala, Dik-Dik and more.

Just examine the hair, assess its qualities and let your imagination be your guide

TC

how about a photo of the actual skins?

Anyone got a good source for barred baboon?

River Pig said:

Anyone got a good source for barred baboon?

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I've got the source if you've got the time machine.

TC

Pretty funny. I looked up Baboons on Wikipedia, to see if there is a species called the Barred Baboon (nope). The article said they are only in Africa and Arabia, but on the subject of diet, Wikipedia said:

"Their diets are omnivorous, but mostly herbivorous, yet they eat insects and occasionally prey on fish, trout and salmon if available, shellfish, hares, birds, vervet monkeys, and small antelopes."

Somebody's been pranking on Wikipedia, apparently.

This got me thinking, I gotta swing by my taxidermist tomorrow and see what scraps he has available for me.

It was the typical example of the book being better than the movie. Don't get me wrong, I like Ewan McGregor and LOVE!!! Emily Blunt, but the events in the book are entirely different than the movie.

Might be wise to be aware of the skins' history.

https://www.cdc.gov/anthrax/specificgroups/animal-workers/hides-drums.html

Anthrax is nasty though curable if you get drugs in time. The downside is that it can be dormant as spores and those little bastards are super tough can last a long time until you inhale them...Still banging the crap out of an infected drum skin massively increases the odds of shit flying around.

The spore toughness was shown with a recent outbreak in Siberia where deer that had died from anthrax and then were frozen in the permafrost decades ago. They released the spores due to an unseasonably hot summer that thawed the carcasses and these re-infected the herds then the people.

Dave

Dave Boyle said:

Still banging the crap out of an infected drum skin massively increases the odds of shit flying around.

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That's why I don't participate in drum circles anymore.

For those that didn't have time to read the article, the take away quote is,

"If you are an animal hide drum owner or player, or if you recently attended a drumming event and are experiencing any symptoms that resemble anthrax, you should get medical care as soon as possible. It is important to talk to your provider about any recent contact you’ve had with animal hide drums."

River Pig said:

For those that didn't have time to read the article, the take away quote is,

"If you are an animal hide drum owner or player, or if you recently attended a drumming event and are experiencing any symptoms that resemble anthrax, you should get medical care as soon as possible. It is important to talk to your provider about any recent contact you've had with animal hide drums."

Click to expand...

DAMN...I was thinkin' of goin' native sometime soon too...