BuckTail Smell

[sroach]

Hi gang,

A year ago I had a friend that gave me a few buck tails (which he shot) they were skinned and treated with Borax, I then frozen them for a week to make sure everything was dead.

I was tying some clousers today, and when I open the ziplock I noticed a very strong smell.

When I use a Olive color bucktail I bought from waspi there is no small and there smells to be a black almost tar like treatment on the back of the hide.

My question is what can I treat the bucktail under hide with to remove the smell?

Thanks

 

[ColdBore]

If they were properly skinned (careful to remove all flesh), and then dried properly, they should be fine.

Being stored inside a tightly sealed ziplock bag held everything in.

Just air them out a while, and any objectionable smell should go away.

 

[TrtnBux]

Cleaning all the fat, meat and other junk is an absolute must. I salt mine for a couple days then let them air dry for 48 hours. After that they go into a baggie but not closed. Like all material, it has a smell but no worse than a saddle.

 

[Steeltrap]

Wash it with a shampoo

 

[sroach]

Thanks guys,

I am going to wash it and then let it sit out for a couple days.

 

[PennKev]

sroach wrote:
Hi gang,

A year ago I had a friend that gave me a few buck tails (which he shot) they were skinned and treated with Borax, I then frozen them for a week to make sure everything was dead.

Did you dry them? As in heavily applied borax and left in a dry, well ventilated place until the skin is hard and dry to the touch? If you just applied borax and froze, they are going to start to rot once they thaw out. In fact, I would think that even if they were dry beforehand, putting them in the freezer might introduce enough moisture to potentially cause problems once they were removed.

Also FWIW, I think even well prepared, store bought buck tails smell bad. But not rotten bad.

 

[poopdeck]

I've deboned many a bucktail. I've long ago stopped processing my own bucktails. Just to time consuming to do it right. It's more economical for me to simply buy them in the colors I want.

They should not smell bad. After removing the bone they have to be scraped clean and thoroughly washed, rinsed and washed a number of times. It is their butt cover. I used salt and lots of it. After removing the bone make sure you stretch it open and pin it down to something. Cover in salt for a day and then scrape it clean again. Resalt for a couple or three more days. I never put them in anything during the salting. Just pin them open and leave them in the garage.

Scrape the salt off again and put the tails in a bucket of water with salt and aluminum sulfate which can be purchased at any agricultural store, possibly at a big box store but I'm not sure. It's just a soil additive like lime and it is not dangerous. Can't recall the mixture but it was not more then a cup of salt and a cup of sulfate per gallon. Let soak in this mixture for a day or so. Remove, let dry and then wash the tails again. Done. Perfectly preserved bucktails.

If it were me I would throw away any bad smelling bucktail. It was not properly cured and could lead to bugs investing your tying materials.

 

[ColdBore]

Wow, and to think that I've been simply carefully skinning and salting, with entirely acceptable results, for all these years.

 

[poopdeck]

Wow, it's just the way I did it, it's not the only way. However, it is the way if you don't want bugs. it's not really that difficult to take your already scraped and salted tails and throw them in what amounts to a bucket of non harmful cloudy water for this guarantee.

You may continue to do it however you like and I shall continue buying them. Everybody else can make their own decision as to which way they prefer.

 

[sroach]

@PennKev,

I did have borax on it for over a week in my large garage, the skin on the back is very hard to the touch.