a great charity event

happy helloween

have a great night

back in black

still enjoying tying the frogs this is a mark 2 the mark 1 had stiff legs the mark 2 has flexible swimming legs when stripped a little bit the legs will fold back when stopped the legs will spring back forward , sorry about the rubbish pics couldnt get it together with lighting yesterday but youll get the idea ....







so what next well ive got a few ideas that ill be tying up next week including some radical boyant bait fish .........enjoy

surface frog mark 1

I'm going crazy again as i do from time to time frogs this time (thanks for the idea Mr capsey now see what you've done) i wanted a frog that was going to have a great profile from underneath you know we've all seen frogs sitting on the water legs spread , well that's what i was after something that i could chuck out and let sit before a little tweak now and again to give the illusion of being alive so below is how it went



OK legs prepared on wire stems ready to be attached



back legs attached just in front of one set of spun hair and more hair in front of that



major amounts of deer hair are then added to form the body



the good bit pulling it all tight and watching it flair up



the front legs go in and more hair is added getting there (the legs are in solid and wont move)



time to get trimming



under belly view the bit that matters as this is what the fish will see when its looking up



top view (i may change the eye colour though )

now this is really my first proper frog tie and i have ideas for a mark 2 already as thinking about it does it really need to be frog colours if I'm looking for a profile type fly i think maybe black would just work as well , in fact what about doing bait fish patterns like that as well mmmmmm more ideas c u tomorrow for an update im going back to the vice

mystery solved

quote from zooligy website

"The big buzz in the cryptozoology community right now concerns a piece of footage taken on May 31st 2009 at Oakledge Park in Burlington, Vermont, and on the shore of Lake Champlain. Lake Champlain is famous in the world of lake monster research as it's alleged to be home to a large, long-bodied animal of some sort: for a previous discussion see my article on the Mansi photo (easily the best known image purporting to show a large, unidentified animal in the lake). The new film was taken by Eric Olsen on his mobile phone"



i draw you attention to the fact above as to where it was filmed and burlington vermont and the time of day early evening

so my deduction on this bit of film is as follows and the mystery is solved

point 1 location
the footage was filmed from the shore at burlington , ken capsey lives close by

point 2
the film was taken in the early evening , ken finishes work in the late afternoon and heads out onto the lake fishing this is a well know fact

point 3
the object and the way it moves looks very like a sun bug maximus , ken capsey fly

point 4
the object moves only in one direction , ken capsey retriving the fly back towards the boat

so thats that solved its ken capsey testing out a sub bug on lake champlain in the early evening after he has finished work .

i thank you

a day off

well i have the day off today so if the weather stays OK ill get to go chuck some fluff around , failing that ill be working on some more frogs legs , buggers are really tricky but enjoyable to make even though it took me half an hour to make the leg below



heres the finished legs ready for the next stage



full results on my adventures into frogs later

i wanna go sub buggin

well I'm back on the tying trail after a couple of days enforced layoff (don't ask but it involves a rabbi a priest a Methodist and half a dozen poll dancers) anyway i was really gagging to get back at the vice i had sub bug fever again , i just love tying them there is so many different combos you can do both with material and size so of i went locked myself away and tied a couple up



i wanted to do something along the lines of a bream colour basically smaller bream are a great food fish for pike in the UK so i needed something slightly creamy brown on top , they go a lot darker when they get older smaller bream are a great pike snack so the above is what i came up with all deer hair this one as it takes on a great shape in the water when wet



next outta the block id this which id probably the easiest bug to tie just a load of saddle hackle a bit of flashbou a few rubber legs for the hell of it and the usual weighted eyes to give it that fish busting gliding action , i was thinking while doing the 3 colour head that i could do a great frog pattern based on the head so that's the plan tomorrow before i go to work ill be using that stonking idea from ken capsey for the legs if you ain't seen it its further down the blog



i was down at orvis today picking up a load of angel hair so i picked up some more sf fibre i get through so much of the friggin stuff Ive probably bought Steve farrah a beach hut in the Bahamas by now , but it does make great bait fish patterns



so angel hair what a friggin material really messy to tie with but i think worth the effort when you want flashy bait fish patterns , the one above I've made the eyes dumbbell style basically cutting a bit of the stems and gluing them together and fixing them on like you would for a clouser , i wanted a little bit of extra weight on this so I've epoxied the head , quite looking forward to using this one i think it will do the bizz .........

right I'm off back to the vice as i have some trolling flies to do for ken the vermont redneck and I'm going to get into the frog zone as well ......c ya later fellow brothers of the fluff

free stuff

ok check out the link for a great new competion that will run throughout the year open to any predator fly angler worldwide heres the link

http://www.spanglefish.com/pikeandpredatorfishingflies/index.asp?pageid=185973&msg=Content%20Updated

check it out , got to be worth a try

annoyingly good poppers

I'm a great fan of people that are great at what they do fly tying wise and these pictures popped up on pike adventures with ken capsey and i was really blown away at them , what perfect poppers and a sure fire hit with the fish to be sure ,

now i spoke to ken about these and it turns out he got a dremmel tool because it was cheap not really that he wanted to set out and do poppers so had to get a tool he just picked one up cheap and came up with this baby below absolutely awesome i love it , I'm also going to have a go at these feck have you seen the price of popper heads in the shops and there always bucket loads of wine corks in my house .

it gets better

so here is his latest batch of frog poppers kens done i love the idea of the chenille on wire never thought about doing that before and of course it will stay together a lot longer with sharp teeth than foam will , don't get me wrong i love using foam but unless you strengthen it with epoxy (like the foam heads i do) the stuff just gets wasted after a couple of fish which is a pain in the butt ,wire you can just bend back into shape .

i can just see this being thrown in amongst the Lillie's and having either a pike or a largemouth bass just exploding on the surface just looks completely right (well maybe a touch less glue on the leg there ken) and id have every faith in using one hats of to you for a great looking fly

in case anybody thinks I'm sucking up here , well absolutely not ill give the greatest respect to anybody who can come up with something hand made like this that will fool a fish into thinking its the real thing and to any fly tyier who makes works of art like these above , in fact its got me going with a million ideas on these so I'm now going to get a dremmel and start doing my own i have a couple of places these would go down a storm on ,

its probably to late in the season where ken is to catch on these but i cant wait to see pictures of bucket mouths and pike that have been fooled on these ......

hats of to ya bro

ello john got any flies

er no

big big flies

for no other reason than i wanted to after tying the big fly yesterday i thought well i reckon a big roach would be cool to make so here ya go 9 inch's of throbbing baitfish , next week ill be getting some video footage of these in the water so keep checking back

hook...............6/0 orvis pike/ muskie hook (cheers for the heads up ken)
underbelly ....white ep fibre
back ...............olive sf fibre
head ...............a mix of the above fibres
throat.............red ep fibre
eyes................10mm conical eyes

if you want to have a go a doing one of these flies yourself you find the step by step over on my website click the link

http://www.spanglefish.com/pikeandpredatorfishingflies/index.asp?pageid=178516

these are really light flies as well so don't be put of by the size you can cast these easily on a 9 wgt pike or saltwater fly rod

9 inch monster

oh er mrs , well i had an email today from a plastic chucker and basiclly he said he loved the idea of fly fishing for pike but he also liked chucking big jerkbait things and he didnt have a lure that was under 7 inchs long , if you could get flies 7 inchs or more id id take the sport up tommorow he said

so i get to work and make up this 9 inch monster and mail him the picture with size dimensions , so i get a mail back from him asking for the best website to buy fly tackle is looks like thats another plastic chucker converted



im really looking forward ro fishing this fly think it will be a killer for muskys as well ....enjoy

wooly heads

been mucking about with some wool heads this morning seeing what i could come up with in the way of bait fish , not used wool for years just happened upon some this morning while looking for something else in a box as you do so i mixed it up a little



the body of this is just ep fibre with some flashbou thrown in i think i could get away with a smaller hook on this one though



some yellow and orange schulpin feathers make up the body on this one should have some great movement in the water ................enjoy

this mornings creations

couple of pike ties from this morning enjoy

split sub bug


double bunny

f.a.o ken

carmi flies

not bad

but id prefer to do it with an 8wgt far more sporting , myself i think extreme squirral fishing is tons better

jabba the zarfartian

ohhhh what a week the her indoors has been studying like crazy for exams this Friday and Monday so I've had toddler sitting duties as well as my normal work so not had chance to fart let alone tie flies or even get out fishing them but hopefully after Monday she has a couple of months of study so i should get some stuff done a million and one flies i really don't need to tie but I'm going to anyway i have way to many flies i think i should maybe have a clear out this week and see if anybody wants them .....

so to a few ties i have managed to get done this week in between clearing up beans and spaghetti of the walls (not me my son) now this week i just fancied tying up some smaller patterns in pre prep for a weeks fishing in the the states at the end of may large mouth bass , muskie , northerners , walleye will be my main target and if i happen to get into some other species as well even better I'm really hyped for that one and I'm sure copious amounts of booze and deer burger will be eaten in the evening round the fire pit hell yea .........

so i was chatting to ken as normal on skype you remember him hes the one that teleports through computer screens with his special zarfartian teleport glasses he was given by the zarfarts one evening while he was on lake champlain (sorry thats another story) anyway in case you have forgotten here he is doing just that sorry about the fuzzy picture the zarffart rays disrupt electric equipment





so smaller ties it is well i could do with a heap of them anyway for perch and stuff so they wont go to waste


the fly above is a real simple streamer type (ill do a step by step this week on my website) tied on a 1/0 mustad using Icelandic sheep hair and a couple of epoxied in 7.5 mm cone eyes very effective little fly this




again Icelandic sheep hair minnow pattern but with stick on eyes with a head of epoxy



Icelandic sheep hair again , its really nice to work with and you can tie very fast baitfish flies with it and move lovely in the water , i go through stages of tying with different materials always good to refresh yourself every now and again with the materials

you looking at me

just some head on shots of bait fish flies for the hell of it

so thats it for today im at work so limited in my tying today at some point this week ill tell the amazing story of ken capsey who encountered a UFO while fly fishing on lake champlain and what it did to him .....butt probe anyone

a fine evening

drinking beer and talking pike flies with your bro.......sweet

hi ties

been a while since I've done any high ties and seeing what a great job ken over at pike adventures did with his one today i thought id tie a couple up as I'm on a split shift at work so not much time

these flies are done on circle hooks which i find ideal for this type of fly , i know not everybody gets on with circle hooks but i like em for certain types of fly and I've always had a 99.9 % lip hook up rate with them yes i was sceptical at first about these hooks but i did some research a few years ago on them and thought id give them a try and was impressed enough to carry on using them , only down side is they ain't that easy to stick in foam fly boxes but they go well in fin sports




6/0 perch fully sf flash



4/0 roach ep fibre belly and olive sf back






not as good as kens pic but i ain't no David bailey ......enjoy

tight lines fluff flingers
Dave

hey capsey

EAT MY SHORTS .......my buddy ken capsey over at pike adventures decided to challenge me into making really small sub bugs so here ya go small but perfectly formed , I'm going to use these for perch on a local venue i think they will do the job





just to give an idea of size the top bug is tied on a 5/0 and is 5 inchs long

Justin Casey

justin is a fine example of a fly tyer despite very poor eye site , he invented a special pair of tying glasses with these he can see to tie even the smallest fly unfortunatly he super glued the glasses onto his face , i spoke with justin casey last night (hes allowed one phone call before his medication) about smaller patterns for perch and thanks for the advice ill speak with you again after your electro shock treatment



so heres a smaller predator version of one of his flies really designed for fishing on the deck for perch but im informed it would work for bass as well



more to follow i have a fire and a box to fill

tight lines
dave