[rfdong]

Hi, I'm posting this here and on fly tying. Wanted to know what are the differences in body vs tail hair (deer or others) and what are the differences in types of hair? rabbit vs bear vs deer vs fox etc. I'm just getting into trying but want to cut down on some of the experimentation and cost of buying 50 different samples etc. I tied some with deer tail but they don't have a ton of action, and I'm not sure if that's what the whole deal is with hair jigs (not much action for cold weather) or if I got the wrong material?

[Mac10]

For action and ease of tying, rabbit hair is probably the best. It comes in straight cut strips called zonker strips, and the crosscut strips, simply called crosscuts. The straight are cut with the "grain" of the hair so the hair lies in the same direction as the strip itself. Why they call the straight cut zonkers, by the name of zonker, beats me. The strips with the hair shooting off to one side are the crosscuts. The most common pattern for hare hair jigs, rabbit hair jigs, is made by starting with the straight cut zonker, penetrating it with the hook and then tying the front end by wrapping near the jighead......then wind to the back a little for making the hair collar, attach a strip of crosscut, winding the thread forward again and then wrapping the crosscut forward three wraps and catching, wrapping with thread, and tying off after making a thread collar. Google a search on tying hair jigs. Rabbit hair is pliable, moves easily. Some folks tie hair jigs with fox to get a poofy effect, kinda shrinks in size when you twitch it and then expands again when you stop.....marabou feather does the same thing. For smallmouth and largemouth jigs, I use rabbit exclusively and also use it for crappie jigs.

Hope this helps....Mac