FLYMPH FORUM

If I were to order and assortment of colors of either seals fur or mohair... which colors would you suggest.
feathersmc has assortments (pretty pricey) but highly recommended. Also, should I just go for the mohair as a substitute, or is the real seal worth it...

I plan to use either of these for dubbing blends. I'm reading Atherton's book and he has a number of flies with seal's fur blended with various other materials that I'm going to make up..

Seal then you will look at the flies and say I am glad I did not have to substitute. Atherton flies come alive with the correct materials.

Tom

I have both (seal and mohair), and agree with Tom. Seal should be your first choice.

Please note, however that not all seal and mohair dubbings are the same. The seal dubbing offered by feathersmc, are really nice stuff. The kid mohair dubbing he sells comes from our friend Bill Bailey, also very nice stuff.

Buy the seal dubbing, then ask for the mohair dubbing for Christmas.

FeathersMC.com primary caters to classic salmon fly tyers. Many of them tie large wallhangers rather than flies for fishing. The mohair is much longer than your average dubbing. It's meant to put on the hook like floss. The more parallel the fibers; the more lustrous they appear just like reeled silk floss. I have several types of mohair that I purchased directly from ranchers. Some is very fine (baby or superfine mohair) and it would make great dubbing for trout flies. Since trout flies isn't John's primary market; he doesn't want to carry it. For this reason I never got around to dyeing it but I hope to someday. The salmon stuff has me overwhelmed at the moment.

I have both from John and prefer tying with the seal. There is no realistic substitute for seal fur.

For some great seal look at Dette Flies he has some awesome stuff and it won't break the bank.

thanks all... seems Seal is the overwhelming choice. Unfortunately, Dette is out of stock of almost all their colors....

Ron, call them, I know they have more colors which need to be bagged up.

narcodog wrote: ↑Fri Dec 13, 2019 1:02 pm Ron, call them, I know they have more colors which need to be bagged up.

+1 factoid

thanks for the extra heads up on Dette's I've ordered other stuff from them in the past... a call probably would be a good idea...