Cat's Whiskers- no.....

[Mataura mayfly]

Not cat's, but have you ever thought what to do with the whisker's from your Hares masks?
The material in question varies from translucent white on the tips through to black at the base for the longer ones and shorter whisker's tend to be a more solid black colour.
They are stiff and make nice bug tails. I had seen horse hair wound as a body material, so why not whisker?
Probably because it splits when you try to flex it through too tight of a curve..... usually right at the point of colour change!
There may be a method like soaking that will prevent the splitting, I will experiment and see what I can come up with. The whisker's seem to be a cross between the consistancy of hair and fingernail in make up, like hair on the tips and harder like fingernail toward the base.

This one shows the variation of colour you can achieve, #14 standard length hook shank with a light dun hackle.



These two are on #12 2X long and dubbed thorax. The fly on the left I waxed the whisker and touch dubbed (too heavy) before wrapping.

[Izaak]

Pretty clever! Especially with the touch dubbing. I'll have to start keeping the whiskers I occasionally find on my wood floor from my 3 cats! Abyssinian...beautiful ruddy underfur......hmm....perfect for March Brown?

[tie2fish]

Nicely done, Mm! The one with the color change body looks similar to the effect one gets with wrapped peccary.

[William Anderson]

Very cool. These turned out really nice. I'll have to put this on the list of things to work out. I hope I can get one to turn out this nice. In tying with the horsehair, I found that twisting two together and wrapping longer, looser wraps took some of the pressure off the material and created an interesting effect. That might work with the whiskers too.



I also put them in a damp napkin and put them in the microwave for about 7 seconds. You might give that a try too.
w

[Mataura mayfly]

Thanks guys.
Izaak, your cat will shed whiskers from time to time, the trick is finding them! But yes..... they do yield some nice dubbing through shedding or by cleaning the brush after grooming. As a rule the donor does not realise your motive and think they are getting spoilt!

tie2fish, Peccary body hair? I do not have too many of them roaming our neck of the woods, but we do have wild boar in many colour shades...... may have to head to the Winchester Mod.70 flyshop.

William, beautiful tie and nice idea with the loose wrap. I think the whisker would try to rebound to straight if loose wrapped, but the soaking and heat may well be the answer. I assume the keratin content of the whisker is a bit more than you would find in hair..... but I am just guessing.

[Smuggler]

Oh yea, they make great segmented bodies for sure. I've only ever used em for that.. never tried for tails. Plus florescent threads show up pretty nice through it for an underbody. Kinda like a d-rib.

[Izaak]

Mataura mayfly,

Yes, I doubt my cats would like the dubbing rake very much!

[chase creek]

MM - Cool beans! There are a couple of stray cats around here that I've been eyeing, but they are pretty safe now. I have several Hare's masks around, going to give this whisker thing a shot. Like the idea of touch-dubbing them before wrapping.
Thanks for posting.

[Kelly L.]

This is a cool fly. I do have 3 cats, plus dogs too. My cats are not sharing their fur willingly though. You are taking a big risk to try to get any fur off of them. Whiskers would be totally out of the question, unless you like long, thin cuts, down your arm, or worse.

[Mataura mayfly]

Thanks everybody.

I have not really managed to get back to this material, had some American visitors here wanting to fish all day. They flew home last night so things are back to normalish for a week until we get an Australian guest who will wish to do the same!

Domestic cats and dogs can be great providers of material. My two German Wirehaired Pointers allow tufts of hair to be pulled from their backs.... at the right time of year when they are shedding their coat. I have though an individual hair from them may wrap a hook of smallish dimentions.

The European Hare is considered a pest here, no season for hunting or protection of any form is gifted to them and they can be harvested at will. Same applies to feral domestic cats. I know some of you will gasp at such a notion, but they decimate native bird and small animal (frog and lizzard especially) populations and can be a great tying material source.

I will try soaking and heating a whisker or two and see how I get on.