We saltwater tiers are sometimes a little slow in mining the wisdom of our freshwater brethren. There are centuries of flies from the trout, warm-water and salmon/steelhead worlds, but we sometimes ignore those resources and all they offer.
Northeastern tier David Nelson first pulled my coat to techniques and materials from the Spey fly and Dee fly world. His striper patterns are a beautiful hybrid of practical, real-world flies and the flowing grace of traditional anadromous patterns. That trend is continuing, with saltwater tube flies and striper and tarpon patterns using materials and methods typically reserved for steelheaders. It's a fruitful marriage, one that can open doors to fresh new saltwater patterns and useful tweaks on existing recipes.
We'll focus here on arctic foxtail fur, a staple material in tube and salmon/steelhead flies. While by no means unheard of in the salt (fox has found its way into redfish flies, tarpon Toads and Clouser variations), the material potentially has much broader applications.
The Un-Feather and Un-Fur
On websites and in catalogs, arctic foxtail is routinely referred to as a "marabou substitute," but the comparison is misleading. Although both materials move wonderfully in the water, foxtail is very different, and in some respects, more versatile and durable.
Unlike marabou, arctic foxtail is a dense, highly tapered fur with long, substantial guard hairs. Depending upon the tail, the guard hairs represent roughly 50 percent of the total package, and they are among the best-tapered hair you'll find on any material. Foxtail guard hairs also have a natural sheen and, on certain tails, a hint of translucence reminiscent of polar bear hair. Like bucktail, the guard hairs have just enough stiffness and structural integrity to retain their basic shape, but they are supple enough to move with every twitch of current or stripping action.
Hiding beneath those guard hairs is dense underfur. Unlike some other fur products, such as fox body fur or Finnish Raccoon (another popular steelhead material), the underfur tends to be longish, sometimes one-half to three-quarters the length of the guard hairs. It varies from coil-like and a little coarse to silky smooth and provides a lot of fluff in a small package. Even though the fur is much softer than the guard hairs, the combination of hair and fur moves as a unit in the water, making it easy to represent a wiggly tail or crab claws on the attack.
The underfur operates differently than other furs used in saltwater flies. The popular and effective bunny strip is a good counterexample. Rabbit strips are tied in attached to the hide. As effective as they are, rabbit strips - and particularly the hide - absorb a tremendous amount of water and can impede casting and create fouling issues in lengths much greater than a few inches. In contrast, foxtail fur is tied in as a clump of fur separated from the hide, so there is no thick leather to soak up water and add undue weight. Additionally, foxtail is incredibly compressible, so it's possible to tie in a sizable chunk with almost no bulk. The result is a fairly large profile with little actual mass.
