Josh Varner’s Big Bug Hair is arguably the highest quality and most consistent deer hair available for tying spun and flared heads on streamers today (or perhaps ever), however the variety of colors, sizes and grades available can be a bit overwhelming for tyers. His lineup and the differences between the types of hair we offer from him is one of the most common tying subjects we’re asked to explain in the shop. This post will hopefully clear up some of the confusion folks have with Big Bug Hair and help you choose which piece of hair is right for your tying needs.
A few 4×8” pieces of big bug hair, grades prime, 1 and 2 from right to left.
Big Bug Hair is classified in two ways: the time of season it was harvested–mid or late season–and the quality of hair–grade 2, grade 1 and prime. All sizes and grades are currently available in both 3×4” and 4×8” sizes with the exception of prime hair which is only sold in 4×8” pieces. The quality of the tanning is consistent across all grades and sizes of hair and the pliability and flatness of the hide is a big separator between Josh’s hair and everyone else’s. As anyone who has worked with untanned or poorly tanned deer hair can tell you, cutting consistent length hair in consistently sized bundles is far less of a chore when the hide lays flat and isn’t stretched, shrunken, curled or cowlicked. Another thing I noticed immediately when I started tying with Varner hair is the relative lack of underfur compared to the deer hair I was used to tying with from other suppliers, especially in the higher grades, allowing cleaner stacking and less time spent combing or blowing the hair out before tying it in. I’m not privy to Josh’s tanning and cleaning methods and couldn’t tell you how he achieves this but I will say as someone who enjoys tying deer hair bugs, it makes a noticeable difference.
Mid-Season vs. Late-Season
The distinction between mid and late season simply refers to the season in which the hide was harvested. Across most of the country the earliest deer hunting seasons in August and September produce hides that are generally either too short for use in most streamer tying or in the process of shedding and not useful for tying at all, hence why hides for Big Bug Hair are only collected beginning in mid-season. As the fall progresses, deer coats grow longer and thicker in preparation for the Winter and the characteristics of the hair change as it grows. While there is, of course, variation from hide to hide and not every piece of hair will be exactly the same, sorting the hair based on two harvest times gives you a much better idea of what you’re going to get in a piece of hair than virtually every other supplier on the market who limit their selection to a single product designation.
Broadly speaking, mid-season hair will be shorter and slightly finer and late-season hair will be thicker and longer. Mid-season hair averages roughly an inch and a quarter while late-season hair averages about an inch and three quarters, with perhaps a quarter inch of variation on either side for both types depending on the specific piece of hide. The differences in length are the first metric you should look at for deciding which type you’d like to tie with–larger headed flies like full size Dungeons or Flat Head Kitties lend themselves naturally to the longer late-season hair whereas mid-season hair is perfectly suited for smaller bugs such as the Mini or Micro Dungeon.
The difference in hair length between average pieces of mid (left) and late-season (right) hair–roughly half an inch.
Another frequently overlooked trait that separates mid and late season hair is fiber diameter. Deer hair grows with a natural taper from a thick base to a pointed tip. The shorter mid-season hair will generally also have a smaller diameter than late-season hair which is thicker and increasingly hollow to provide the deer better insulation in the Winter. This means a couple different things from a tier’s perspective: thinner hair will spin more aggressively than thicker more hollow hair which thread can bite into more deeply and therefore secure to the hook more easily. The late-season hair will also flaring more readily, often with fewer thread wraps due to its hollowness. At first glance this might suggest mid-season hair is more suited to spinning and late-season to stacking but both can be used for either purpose with a bit of awareness of how they’ll behave on the hook. One thing that cannot be adjusted for as easily with tying technique is the head density of the final product. If you trim two equal width bundles of hair, the one with the thinner diameter hair will have more individual hairs in it than one with thicker hairs. When you spin or flare these two equal sized bunches on hooks, the thinner hair bunch will therefore produce a denser packed head than the thicker hair bunch which has fewer total hairs in it and flares more aggressively. Of course, a denser head can be achieved with thick hair by simply tying in larger bundles of hair or using a hair packer, but I find it comes more naturally with thinner hair. Note too that the thinner diameter of mid-season hair also makes it a decent option for some larger winged dry fly tying applications, such as stoneflies and searching patterns like stimulators.
As Kelly has said in several streamer tying videos, he generally prefers a more open head on his patterns, an opinion shared by many in the shop, which comes more naturally with thick late-season hair. Others may have different preferences for what they want in a head though and part of the beauty of Varner’s hair classification is that you can choose–though one tyer may prefer thick hair, another may not. While Kelly’s patterns generally look closest to his original versions with the more open head of his tying style, some patterns lend themselves strongly to the denser heads that thinner hair allow, particularly those with wedge heads in which a dense, hydrophobic head is the goal–take, for example, Lynch’s Drunk and Disorderly. Experimenting with different pieces of hair can help you learn what your personal preference is in different applications.
Grades of Hair
The three grades of Big Bug Hair in increasing order of quality are grade 2, grade 1, and prime. Quality of hair from a tyer’s perspective is determined by consistency of length throughout the piece of hide, length of hair, presence of guard hairs and alignment of hair tips. Grade 2 hair is still perfectly tanned and very much acceptable to tie with, but poorer tip alignment may make stacking a bit more of a hassle and require trimming of butt sections before tying in, and shorter overall length may limit what can be tied with it. Grade 2 is, however, considerably less expensive than other grades, starting at just $9.00 for a 3×4” patch. Grade 1 hair is outstanding quality with well aligned tips and great length, a real pleasure to tie with. While a considerable investment ($30.00 for a 4×8” patch at the time of writing), prime Big Bug Hair is the finest streamer deer hair money can buy. The tips are so well aligned you may find you don’t need to stack them for many uses and the length and hair density is the greatest available among late season hair. Of course, when we select hair at the shop to fill online or phone orders or just to hand to a customer in store, we pro-grade all hair a second time to send out the pieces we personally would most prefer to tie with. Oftentimes this means you might receive a grade 2 patch approaching grade 1 quality, or a grade 1 of prime quality, especially when you buy a color and grade which we have a larger inventory of pieces to choose from.
Perfectly aligned tips from a beautiful piece of prime hair (left) vs poor tip alignment on a grade 2 (right). Note the prevalent guard hairs on the grade 2 hair which will be slightly different in diameter and color than the rest of the coat. Both can be tied with, but the grade 2 will require more preparation for most uses and the guard hairs may be noticeable in some applications.
That’s Varner’s Big Bug hair in a nutshell. Josh also supplies us with some of the best belly hair and bucktails around (which are also some of the only fully tanned belly hair and bucktails on the market) as well as an increasing color range of short-fine hair for dry fly tying, which we may discuss in a future post. If you have any questions about Varner hair or any other deer hair or want help finding a piece of hair with specific traits to suit your tying needs, give us a call at (406)-682-7020 or stop by the shop anytime.