can i????????

[horses50]

can i substitute elk for deer hair as i am trying to tie up some balloon caddis and i aint got no elk?thank you

[andreb]

You can try. It is regularly done, although the deer hair will draw in water faster than the elk, so a good floatation treatment might be neccessary. The advantage of elk, is that the strands are thicker and stiffer, and don't have as much tendancy to "spin", or stand up straight, as the deer hair. When making a caddis wing, you don't really want the strands to stick up, but rather to lie flat. If you can get the deer hair to lie flat, you will be fine.
Let us know how it goes.

[syphogenic]

The problem you will face as mentioned is that the hair wing will flare too much. Now you could reduce the thread tension to avoid this but the fly will be prone to hair loss.