MAINE - Life in the Slow Lane
Dave I find a medium course deer hair best . too fine and I find it hard to spin same for to course. I find it really difficult to find good black (dyed) deer hair for bugs and bombers. Tuesday I bought a couple of 3"x3" patches of carabou I'm going to give that a try. 
I ask because I have always used deer hair from patches of a deer that has been harvested.
Hi Dave
I prefer the hair from a doe deer for spinning. A younger buck
will do as well, but hair from an old one is quite coarse.
Just avoid the long wirey stuff i.e. next to the tail, back of the
legs etc.....A few inches ahead of the tail on a buck you will
find a patch of darker hair..This makes great tail material..it is
a darker grey and doesn't spin well.
For natural white the belly of a doe works great...if it has a greyish
tint to it, then it is relegated to the dye pot.
If you are doing a 'hands on' purcahse check for the amount of
fuzz among the hair. It can be carded out or picked out but it severely
slows the tying process .
Like lahave stated, good solid black is hard to find..
Stephen
Have you ever tried moose hair
Inmy experience moose hair doesn't spin well at all. I do use moose for the wing on some flies.
Have you ever tired antelope ?
No I haven't Dave. I have a big patch of natural deer hair from a doe I shot in New Brunswick that I use to tie muddlers and for the few salmon bugs and bombers I tie every year I just buy pre dyed pieces.
How do you know good deer hair from not so good deer hair ?
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was
cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time.
On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words,
and some of the words are theirs.