Last year a friend gave me a bucktail he had salted and stuffed into a Ziploc bag. I put it into my freezer and hoped it would smell better when I took it out.

 

It did last week when it was used to make a jig for the friend for his birthday. For a while I had been thinking about tying a few feathers on the aft end of a bucktail jig. (Bass fisherman: think "preacher jig;" trout fisherman: think Lefty Kreh's Deceiver.)

 

Let's look at the components of such a creation:

 

 

Beside the buck's tail, we've got modified-for-extra-shank-length Poison Tail jigheads, two types of flash material and, at top, a calf tail (kiptail) which had been laying quietly in a box for the past twenty years.

 

 

Here's the hackle which is plucked off a string of them sewn together.

 

 

Abracadabra! They just flew onto the hook!  . . .  Sorry I didn't take the time to take photos of each step involved. And now that it appears that Quabbin Reservoir is opening for boating May 9th, I've got to spool fresh line, rearrange 3700s, etc. & etc. Maybe in the doldrums of summer I'll turn on the a/c in the tackle room and do a post about wrangling bucktail onto a jighead. For now, a few more pics of this jig:

 

 

A good hair and hackle day?

 

 

The Wet Look

 

 

Here's lookin' at ya, big mama smallie!

 

That looks really good!!   Nice profile while wet.

Very nice !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very nice Will Wetline. That looks really good. I actually made something almost identical a couple weeks ago. They flow really nicely in the water.

That first pic reminded me of a skunk! I’ve actually saved some skunk hair before, wonder how it would do. I think I made a minnow fly or two with the white part, I can’t recall. Great looking creations