Squirell tails

[Pastor]

For those of you who may tie your own hair jigs; I have killed a couple of squirrels and will save the tails. I will continue to keep them as I kill more. If you would like them to use in your jig tying please send me a PM with your name and address. When I get 10 or 12 I'll send them to you. No charge. After all, you are my brothers. If I get more than 1 PM, I'll split them between you. P.S. All I have right now are gray squirrel tails.

[jlaughlin72]

How would you ship them without them going bad? I have a few in the freezer along with a small buck tail, and if I was to mail them to someone, i wouldn't want them to go bad in route.

[Pastor]

I'll wait until they are dried out before shipping them Johnny. They should be fine after all of the moisture is gone.

[jlaughlin72]

Ok, that's kinda what I was thinking.. try and get the bone out and let them dry.

[LouisianaFishNut]

I did the same thing one year Pastor. One of them that asked for some mentioned sending them in borax if I remember right. I didn't have any so I put them in bags of salt and mailed them to 3 different people. Never heard from any of them whether they got them, or what shape they were in...hope they did, but it would've been nice to hear back ya know.

[southernslabs]

been saving squirrel tails all my life and never had an issue with them going bad. just got to pull out the middle part

when you clean squirrel just cut about an inch slit in bottom side of tail peel it back a little and use pliers to pull out bone-meat part. helps to twist the fur as you pull. hang for a couple of weeks and your good to go

[pondhopper]

This is the way to keep the tails .Cut the tail close to the body. The take a piece of tin foil roll it tight around the cut end in shape of a funnel. thumb tack it up and fill the funnel with salt. It will absorb the salt through bone and meat. The left over salt will draw out the moisture. Fish like the salt absorbed by the hair and they are preserved.

[Team M&M]

I learned to debone the tail another way.
Just make a cut all the way around the base of the tail to seperate the skin of the tail from the skin on the body. Then take 2 pencils and clamp the tail firmly between them at the base of the tail and hold the squirrel body in one hand and the pencils in the other. Now just pull and the pencils will slide the tail right off the bone.

I prob make it sound more complicated than it is but if you do it a few times it's very fast and easy. Takes like 20 seconds from start to finish.

On another note it takes me 10 minutes to clean a rabbit but I saw a guy at a wildlife and fisheries demonstration one time do it in about 40 seconds. I was 14 or so at the time and wished I'd of paid more attention to exactly how he did it.