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We recycle...
but we don't want your old aluminum cans or plastic, we do, however,
want your squirrel tails. We need them to create hand-tied dressed
hooks that do a great job catching fish. We know this for a fact
because, here at Mepps, we've been recycling squirrel tails for about a
half a century, and we recycle more of them than anyone else. This
makes us some kind of recycling pioneer and we're proud of it.
We've tried hundreds of other materials, both natural and synthetic
and nothing else works as well. Todd Sheldon discovered
this in the early 1960's. While fishing the Wolf River with Mepps
spinners, he caught his limit of trout and was heading back to his
car when he met a boy who also had limited out fishing with Mepps. But,
all of the boy's trout were larger than Todd's. This is not
something easily accepted by any fisherman.
Todd
noticed the Mepps spinner attached to the boy's line had a tuft of
squirrel tail tied to the hook so he began experimenting with dressed
hooks. Bear hair was tried as well as fox, coyote, badger, skunk, deer,
even Angus cow. But the only two tails that provided the
pulsating action Todd was looking for were squirrel tails and
buck tails.
“Squirrel Tails Wanted” reads the large carved wooden sign on
Wisconsin’s highway 45 north in Antigo. The sign
amuses some folks, but it intrigues others so much they stop to find out what we're all about. This is fine with us. We welcome inquisitive visitors and offer weekday 
Processing
both squirrel and buck tails is a lot of work. Upon arrival every buck
tail must be trimmed to remove any body hair. Squirrel tails
seldom need trimming, but they do need to be sorted and graded. All of
the tails, however, need to be washed, not once, but several times.
After drying, some are left natural while others are dyed brilliant
hues. They are then carefully packaged and stored until needed. When they are needed, they are placed in the hands of a skilled fly tyer, where they become a Mepps dressed hook.