Good to hear from you Roop!
I've definitely had bug problems with natural materials in the past. Cedar sounds good and the bay leaves are very interesting solution Doc.
Poisonally, I now use
airtightness to combat the bugs and it's been workin' great. Besides I find the smell of napthalene to be undesirable - have you ever smelled moth balls? :hehe:
Flies I tie per year by percentage:
75% striper flies
20% steelhead flies
5% other
Used to be 95% steelhead and 5% salmon while living on the west coast - meaning lots of naturals and expensive at that!
But now, with 75% striper flies and that being 75% synthetic, I have much less of a problem with bug damage. Just don't have a lot of naturals in my tying kit compared to before.
For the bucktails and hackles I do have, the airtight container approach is working well especially when I put bags of sorted materials into the airtight tubs.
Anything synthetic does not go into the tubs. I use a section of flourescent light tubing to pack full swatches of flash materials and synthetics and they go into the tying kit just like that.
After investing in a few of those snap-tight cases even my rarely used atlantic salmon feathers (the rare and pricey stash) are good as new. And like... unused as well, but maybe this winter I'll bring a few rangers or a jock scott to the vise.
For bucktails I have a dedicated tupperware container where all those smelly little tail rinds go into. I could use a little bay leaf in that one let me tell ya!
Striper hackles are put back into the plastic bags or put into larger flat bags and placed into tupperware as well except for smaller portions I carry in my portable striper tying kit. I steal marabou swatches from my steelhead kit fpr striper flies but the rest of my naturals for stripers are small stuff used for shrimp, crab, flounder and other flats critter flies. These portions are so small I don't even think the bugs are interested in them.
Probably the best solution for airtight storage would be to use my Tilia Vaccuum sealer's adapter for bins and jars. Kind of a pain to re-seal but for long term storage of very expensive materials like jungle cock eyes, blue-eared pheasant, polar bear and heron :devil: it would be the way to go.
.02