flies glorious flies

quick the suns out in scotland get the bbq out

finally i got down in front of the vice today I've been gagging to get some flies done but life does throw a spanner in the works sometimes and i had planned to get a load done yesterday but we in Scotland had a very rare day of hot weather so the BBQ was dusted down and homemade burgers were chucked on beers cracked open and well that was that for yesterday

CLOUSER TIME

so the humble clouser minnow probably the most famous of flies you could in theory make a dozen of the fly above and be able to fish for pretty much anything that swims in the world although the fly above being 6 inch's may be a bit large for your average small trout but it will work for pretty much any other predatory fish ..

BLACK AND YELLOW ATTACK

so why the closers well they are for one a very good fly and pretty much under used in this country for pike but with there great wet profile they do make a great bait fish pattern and its a fantastic fly for fishing smaller waters like canals or ponds

pink is it

again another so underused colour is pink i have no idea why but its been a life saving fish banker in the past so of course i had to do at least one in pink

yellow and green

so yellow and green again another great bait fish colour and with the dumbbell eyes and epoxy head these flys will get down on the deck and ride hook up

its a catcher

yellow and orange gold eyes this will catch pretty much anywhere and at 6 inch's long this is a pike magnet again with the hook riding up you can get it down on the deck without worrying about fouling

its a natural thing

without doubt sometimes you just got to have natural patterns in your box and i find an olive backed pattern will mimic a lot of prey fish so a very versatile fly, the fly above is done with some olive sculpin feather at the back to add some length and profile.

the picture below is the same fly as above but this one is wet you can clearly see the lovely bait fish profile and if you look hard enough you'll see the piketrek life form UV flash which i think will be a great trigger point

RABBIT CLOUSER

pretty much the same colours and design as the flys above except that the sculpin has been replaced with olive rabbit strip just for something different and to add movement

lots o bait

with my u.s.a road trip getting ever closer I'm going to make sure i have a massive box full of these in different sizes as they will be great in smaller sizes for high sticking the river small mouths and of course the larger sizes for the pike large mouths and muskies

so that's the 6 inch ones done ill be working on smaller sizes this week , although I'm sure if i have a dig around i think I've probably got a box of the kicking around already but any excuse to tie some flys

so that's that for today been quite interesting tying these up as its been a while since i last tied some so big thanks to ken at pike adventures for the inspiration , he does quite a few of this fly and hell if its good enough for the man from Vermont then its good enough for me

see you all for the Tuesday tie off tomorrow

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)