guard Hair

TOP TURRET GUNNE · 01-01-08, 10:01 AM

Am reading books on tying flies---cannot find answer to what is guard hair and where is it located on the pelt or feather skin??

thanks----Gunne

curbside · 01-01-08, 10:17 AM

Guard hair is the longer stiffer fibers on an animal pelt such as squirrel that one typically removes when prepairing dubbing.You can use this material as tailing or leave in varying amounts depending on how spikey or course you want to make the body of the fly you are tying.One of my go -to nymphs is a red fox squirrel pattern that uses guard hair for the tail,I remove most to all the guard hair for the abdomen and leave about half of the guard hair in the mix for the thorax.

01-01-08, 10:01 AM	#1
TOP TURRET GUNNE Native Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Acworth Ga Posts: 408	guard Hair Am reading books on tying flies---cannot find answer to what is guard hair and where is it located on the pelt or feather skin?? thanks----Gunne __________________ Top Turret Gunne WW II 1943/1945 34 Missions B-17 Bombers

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01-01-08, 10:17 AM	#2
curbside Native Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: north decatur area Posts: 692	Guard hair is the longer stiffer fibers on an animal pelt such as squirrel that one typically removes when prepairing dubbing.You can use this material as tailing or leave in varying amounts depending on how spikey or course you want to make the body of the fly you are tying.One of my go -to nymphs is a red fox squirrel pattern that uses guard hair for the tail,I remove most to all the guard hair for the abdomen and leave about half of the guard hair in the mix for the thorax.