Can anyone shed any light on why my bunches of bucktail flair up into a useless mess when trying to tie deceivers etc.  It comes right on rare occasions but I cant put my finger on what is going wrong the rest of the time.  I take 3 loose wraps around the bunch before tightening at which point.......FUZZ

Yup, good advice Kev. Seabass, I have one particular piece of bucktail that no matter how I tie it in, flares like a real b*gger - unlike the rest of my stocks of the stuff. I think the base of the hair is thicker or something. To keep the fly streamlined I tie in the hair as close to the base as possible, then put a wrap further up the hair to hold it down in a nice tapered shape... make sense...?

Thanks for the advice chaps.  I would like to blame the quality of the materials here but I dont think thats possible.  I will give it a go later wrapping tightly on the initial turns and see howI go.  I will report back on progress later.  Many thanks.

Clark you are bang on of course. i have the clouser bok by bob clouser and found it an education to read, he explained the difference in fibres on thetail well with some being hollow. this explains the flaring described. its an excellent book for saltwater tiers even if you can tie a clouser (not hard!) as has other tips too.

Thanks to all and especially Clark who as usual has surpassed himself with input above & beyond the call of duty!!!

My new bucktails arrived from the USA last week and things are much improved. Very useful insight into the grades of hair within a single tail though. I was down to the springy coarse stuff at the time of writing the original call for help.

Besides the usual poppers and baitfish imitations such as clousers and deceivers, are there any must haves for my NZ fly box? Fat Boys sound like one, whatever they may be?!?!?!

I found this guy to be a really good too, he is making a lefty's deciever in this clip but if you click the more video tab there are a heap of others on what bucktail to use and why.  He adds the bucktail as described above then uses his thumb to push it into place, some great tips in the videos anyway, not sure who posted them originally but they are bloody great!

Feather Merchants had some nice stuff a while back. I got a couple of goodies... ask at Rod and Reel if they'll order it in for you.