Red Fox Squirrel - Harvesting Dubbing

[DOUGSDEN]

Rick,
I almost chocked on my breakfast when I read your humorous return message above! Geeze, the things we do for a handful of dubbing! I hope your dog is o.k.?
Dave Whitlock was surely on track when he discovered this amazing dubbing! Have you seen his video/DVD on tying this amazing series of flies? He talks at length about how this came about! Fascinating! I have done the same procedure with Gray Squirrels and it is a beautiful fur as well! Pine Squirrel fur (with its incredible softness) has also gone thru the coffee grinder (now a fur blender) and is mixed and prepacked in the dubbing box in the den closet! There is not as much of a hard contrast in these "rats" as in the fox and grays in belly fur vs. back fur!
Let me know how your harvest came out! I'm interested to know!
Tucked up in the den on a snowy Sunday afternoon,
Dougsden

[Terrestrial12]

Make your life easier and pick up 10 dollar electric beard trimmer. I got mine at "dollar general". Not worth a damn for trimming beards but works great for shaving tree rats! On really good winter coats I'll shave them with the shortest guard on it, and it leaves about 1/16th of the very fine black under fur still on the skin. (Some can be seen between the scissor cuts in the original photos) Then I go back with no guard, just the razor, and shave it off in a separate bowl. That gives me a very short, fine dubbing similar to mole. I like it a lot for waterhen bloa