Frustrated with the quality and consistency of the deer tails coming through the big distributors, we found ourselves knee deep in the bucktail world. As we tumbled down this rabbit hole, we also found some great sources for other fur/hide products such as Fox Tails, Coyote Tails, Skunk Tails, and more.
Skunk tails are an incredibly under-rated tying material! Maybe it’s just because skunks get a bad reputation (I’ll blame cartoons with Pepe Le Pew), or maybe it’s because they aren’t as numerous as animals like deer, fox, or squirrels. The hair on a skunk tail is an excellent substitution for bucktail material, and depending on the application maybe even a better suited material.
The average skunk tail looks smaller than a large sized deer tail, but it all depends on how you plan to use the hair. If you ignore all the brown/dark hair on a deer tail, and only consider the white hair, an average sized skunk tail and an average sized deer tail have about the same amount of usable material. A skunk tail tends to have slightly longer hair, generally in the 3.5”-4.5” range but sometimes as long as 6” or more!
Skunk tails can be a bit difficult to “grade” and sort like we do the deer tails, so here’s what we’re doing at this time. Any “average” sized skunk tails are packaged individually, one tail to a bag. If a tail looks a bit small or thin or short, we’re packaging them two tails to a bag. But there are also “XL” tails available from time to time. We’d consider an “average” skunk tail to be roughly 10”-12” total length, and an “XL” size to be 13”-15” long. But we’re also taking length of hair and fullness into account at the same time. If you have any questions, please reach out!
If you’re tying a pattern that requires long hair, but don’t need the all the crazy dyed colors, we’d recommend giving Skunk tails a try! The Beast Fleye pictured here was tied using only Skunk Tail.
***These Skunk tails have been processed and tanned by a professional hide tannery. The hide is soft and the hair is clean, like you would expect to see on a fur coat. There is an very slight odor present, but almost no skunk “stink” at all.
Frustrated with the quality and consistency of the deer tails coming through the big distributors, we found ourselves knee deep in the bucktail world. As we tumbled down this rabbit hole, we also found some great sources for other fur/hide products such as Fox Tails, Coyote Tails, Skunk Tails, and more.
Skunk tails are an incredibly under-rated tying material! Maybe it’s just because skunks get a bad reputation (I’ll blame cartoons with Pepe Le Pew), or maybe it’s because they aren’t as numerous as animals like deer, fox, or squirrels. The hair on a skunk tail is an excellent substitution for bucktail material, and depending on the application maybe even a better suited material.
The average skunk tail looks smaller than a large sized deer tail, but it all depends on how you plan to use the hair. If you ignore all the brown/dark hair on a deer tail, and only consider the white hair, an average sized skunk tail and an average sized deer tail have about the same amount of usable material. A skunk tail tends to have slightly longer hair, generally in the 3.5”-4.5” range but sometimes as long as 6” or more!
Skunk tails can be a bit difficult to “grade” and sort like we do the deer tails, so here’s what we’re doing at this time. Any “average” sized skunk tails are packaged individually, one tail to a bag. If a tail looks a bit small or thin or short, we’re packaging them two tails to a bag. But there are also “XL” tails available from time to time. We’d consider an “average” skunk tail to be roughly 10”-12” total length, and an “XL” size to be 13”-15” long. But we’re also taking length of hair and fullness into account at the same time. If you have any questions, please reach out!
If you’re tying a pattern that requires long hair, but don’t need the all the crazy dyed colors, we’d recommend giving Skunk tails a try! The Beast Fleye pictured here was tied using only Skunk Tail.
***These Skunk tails have been processed and tanned by a professional hide tannery. The hide is soft and the hair is clean, like you would expect to see on a fur coat. There is an very slight odor present, but almost no skunk “stink” at all.
