We study the properties of a single-component (spin polarized) degenerate dipolar Fermi gas of 161Dy atoms using a hydrodynamic description. Under axially-symmetric trapping we suggest reduced one- (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) descriptions for the cigar and disc shapes, respectively. In addition to a complete numerical solution of the hydrodynamic model we also consider a variational approximation. For a trapped system under appropriate conditions, the variational approximation as well as the reduced 1D and 2D models are found to yield results for the shape, size and chemical potential of the system in agreement with the full numerical solution of the three-dimensional (3D) model. For the uniform system we consider anisotropic sound propagation in 3D. An analytical result for anisotropic sound propagation in a uniform dipolar degenerate Fermi gas is found to be in agreement with the results of numerical simulation in 3D.