Homeland Security and Foiling the Invasion (Attempting to prevent infestations of your fly tying materials)

 

Carpet Beetles (Larva and Adult 1/8th” !)

“INSECTS:  Most people seem mainly worried about moths , these however are not the only pests which may attack your fly-dressing materials.  Among the most common are Carpet beetles, feather mites, ants, various termites, and there are a whole host of others.  It may be of mild academic interest to determine which bugs are presently chomping their way through your expensive and treasured materials, but it really does not matter much in the final analysis.

The substances mentioned, apart from Methyl Bromide, will not kill many of these pests once they have infected your materials, they simply act as a deterrent. Most especially the eggs of some pests are notoriously hard to remove, and killing the adults, or larva is not a lot of use, as the eggs simply hatch out and you have the whole problem all over again.

 If you find anything at all crawling about in your materials, then you must immediately assume the worst, and act accordingly, as you will otherwise most likely lose a good proportion, if not all of your materials.  DO NOT DELAY!  Act immediately.”

If you tie often, you usually have an immediate indication of anything unwelcomed into your tying station or storage place. Some tie in a spare bedroom, on a kitchen table, dining room table, garage, shop, portable lap station or outbuilding. Because of space limitations or because of stuff acquisition I have lost a suitable fixed place to tie. This causes materials to be housed in drawers and boxes and bags and removed to mobile tying locations until such time as the spouse sounds the event happening soon alarm or just as a matter of course starts to complain at the mounting accumulation of materials on the dining room table. This has been compounded with a kid who ties more than I do and accumulates more than I and is at that stage where cleaning up after one’s self is still a foreign concept.

This tying on the fly (hmm?) requires extra effort to put things away because they cannot be left out on a work station. If they are just stacked in an open container in the garage then the rules of the above article are violated in short order. I have, as previously noted, lost capes and assorted loose materials to some forms of infestations be it mice, moths or these pesky beetles noted in the article. If you are a beginner, spend extra effort to store and preserve your materials. If you are an accumulator of every possible material, then this is all the more important.