raptor fibre adventures and work

simply crap this week no other word for it the wife finished all her exams at the end of last week i had a really long weekends work ahead of me and then i was fishing on Tuesday well that was the plan till the weather turned really nasty on Monday night and with gales force winds blowing about it just wasn't worth taking the risk of a 4/0 in the back of the head so i planned to go later in the week and it would give me a chance to catch up on some fish i had to do

well that was the plan anyway as i sit here contemplating going to work I'm watching the trees outside swaying from side to side i realise the weeks been a write of fishing wise hopefully next week will be better but i did get a lot of flies tied oh well ...................

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so I'm really into doing the hot core flies at the moment they just look good and I've got a whole heap of ideas for them so something to look forward to playing with the ideas next week , somebody who shall remain nameless said to me this week on these flies

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"all ya need is a diving lip and a treble hook you know where I'm coming from"
great quote that

ready to go , well if you cant get out and fish then you may as well tie flies

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I've also been playing some more with piketreks raptor fibre and enjoying the results , as you saw in the last post id mixed it with other fibres well what I've done now is just tied it using the raptor fibre alone and nothing else these are tied with very little of the material on the actual hook as you can see from the pictures below , this gives a very nice free flowing fly which will have plenty of movement in the water which lets face it is what you want that dying agitated bait fish movement
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overall I'm happy with the flies above although on the top one I've overdone the orange a bit ill just cut it back a bit but with the Mr bond head on them they will work really well in the water
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firetiger pattern
you really cant go wrong with a firetiger colour always worth having them in your fly box , if you interested in the raptor fibre and lets face it you cant fail not to be interested then you can find it on piketreks site here raptor fibre have fun

if your not aware the pike fly fishing association has its own club website and members only forum but it also has its own blog which can be found here so if you follow my blog go over and check them out as there always the odd interesting snippet on there and if you go and look down there side menu you'll find some great step by steps which is being added to all the time and you don't need to be a club member to see it or check out the videos here's a sample

high tie from PFFA on Vimeo.

so with that i wish you tight lines if your one of those lucky people who are getting out today and remember a big fish is only a fisherman's tale if you don't have a picture so make sure those batteries are fully charged and your cameras packed in your bag

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

playing with toys and raptor fibre

i was supposed to be going out doing some chucking this week my planned and preferred day was Tuesday or wed but gale force winds here in Scotland scuppered my plans so it looks like it will be next week now and there is some milder weather due early next week so finger crossed

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so with some time on my hands i decided to spool up my 5wgt reel its been sitting around for a few weeks needing lines on them , i have a couple of really nice rivers close to me for wild trout one i need the 5 wgt as theres also some big browns in there , the other river i have is full of smaller wild browns and ken over at pike adventures is making me a 2wgt this winter for the sole purpose of this little river and i cant wait and before anybody says anything trout eat minnows therefor they are a predator , sometime its nice to chase other species and ill also use this for the local roach population what a blast

so today i got back to my proper bench I've been a bit lazy the last few weeks just bringing bits and peaces through to the living room and tying on the coffee table although not entirely my fault as her indoors was studying so needed the Pierce and quite and as i tend to listen to rock radio stations being in the same room listening to megadeth as shes studying for a maths degree don't really work to well so i needed to get some bench karma in

so just to get the karma right i whipped out a quick deciver you can never go wrong or have enough decivers great for fresh water predators as well as salt water preds

so once karma was restored i had some work to do before i got down to the fun and games of trying out some superb new raptor material from the chaps at piketrek

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so down to work pumping out a load of quality flies actually a new colour of core flies which will be pretty good on waters with lots of jack pike nice green colours should do the trick

so raptor fibre what is it well its a Fantastic quality super-fine fibre with huge volumescence! Super-shiny textured material in a dazzling array of extra-bright colours and natural olive shades. plenty to keep your average tier like me occupied for a while , because its a very super fine material it works well being blended or mixed with other materials so with this in mind ive mixed stuff up in the pattern below
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raptor fibre first tie

so having decided that i was building a big fly i used a 7 inch section of raptor fibre fish belly around this I've placed a thick section of raptor fibre road cone orange this is fast becoming a favorite colour for a core as the picture on pike treks site really doesn't do it justice its a really glowing orange , so I've then around the core hollow tied some white synthetic fibre again a great material to tie with around the orange and then added 3 thin sections of chartreuse raptor the length of the back of the fly one on the back and 2 on the sides.
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I've also tied in a thick long back length section of olive ep sparkle fibres i then added some of piketreks mossy green natural colour synthetic fibre a thin long Peace hollow tied once I've done this i take my thumb and forefinger and blend a little while on the hook , i then simply added a couple of 9 mm eyes and a thin layer of epoxy and i think its turned out really well

ill be really interested to see what uncle Greg from piketrek comes up with as well , its great when you get sent some new materials and no pre conceived ideas of what you have to do with it and no doubt he will have something completely different with it

so that's that for today ill be on the skype to redneck pikepicker capsey later so no doubt some fresh ideas will happen so have a great weekend and hope you land some monster pike and remember your cameras

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

team green and other storys

down with the long weekend shift again in fact I'm not going home at all this weekend because by the time i get home in the small hours of Sunday morning its pretty much time for me to come straight back to work so i guessed that I've got pretty much everything i need to have a comfortable stay so may as well the wife gets the remote control the whole bed and i get the fly tying gear and rock radio being streamed into my office pretty much yea that rocks pretty well with me so stage one is complete

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office rock (yup that's really my office at work)

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so having got my tying stuff ready its time now to eat and unfortunately despite having an industrial kitchen area at work i plump for the TV dinner it said on the box steaklet now i was pretty sure there was actually no meat near this box at all but time was running out and i needed to get back to work , so stuck it in the microwave for the obligatory 9 Min's on high and leave to stand for a minute to cool , actually you'd be better leaving it a couple of hours to cool down as the bloody thing was thermonuclear i tasted a bean and i swear it burnt a whole right through my body it was so hot the bean juice was akin to laver fresh out a volcano Jesus put a warning on the box or at least a disposable Geiger counter

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the offending meal (did i say meal)

yet again more adventures in furry critters

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just the way it is with me ill just get a flurry of ideas hit me at once and then that's it i gotta run with it as you ll have guessed this week its been bunny bug type furry critters mainly for chucking next week I'm really going all out to catch on the bloody things and my confidence was high id made what i thought was some pretty cool critters .

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and then the feckin postman comes a knocking this morning with a bag of goodies from the chaps at piketrek included was a bag of bloody great looking gold eyes well of course I'm straight up for thinking bloody hell these would look great on a critter so of to orvis i went as surprisingly id run out of fur well green anyway so some was purchased and i set to work again ,

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with the eyes being self sticking its so easy just to stick em on and add a few layers at a time of piketreks Mr bond and its job done but of course although Ive done a couple of critters with the new eyes my mind says to me well i guess i could do some without eyes as well and the cycle continues and really the only way to break it is to .........well you cant break it , its an addiction like any other except it hasn't got a medical name and theres no cure for it not that id want one anyway guess ill just keep doing it till either i drop , or i fall asleep
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A FLY IN THERAPY EARLIER THIS EVENING

so you got the itch you cant scratch what do you do keep tying off course , well while i was in orvis i did what you should never do in orvis i let my eyes wander and they rested on some lovely white magnum zonker strip i shouldn't have looked i really shouldn't have but it was too late i had a vision of a white critter with a red head the classic colour pattern it had to be done so i dragged myself to the counter and passed over the cash well the kids could do with losing a bit of weight so i spent Monday's grocery money however there is an apple tree in the garden so the kids will still eat till i get paid and it will be really healthy for them as well

all it really is a different slant on the classic bunny bug fly all I've done is added flash while I've palmerd up the shaft and epoxied an eye on for a little weight , the other 2 white flys above have simply got a thin coat of Mr bond to seal the head this will sink slightly slower than the version below so should be able to explore the water layers better with just a floating line

GROOVING WITH MR GREEN

so i set about my task of playing with the lovely lime green fur id picked up and just really pissed about with some ideas mainly with changing different things on the head like adding fluro eyes as below

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one of the not so weighty versions the head is just orvis lime crinkle flash as the main body flash all I've done is taken a dozen strands and wrapped them around the head added Mr bond to seal it and not bad looking for a bit of fur on a 4/0 hook yea it will catch fish i think

below is basically the same as the fly above except that I've added a small piece of orange crinkle flash in the throat area just for that little bit of something different , sometimes when your fishing and not catching just a simple thing like changing a small something whether it be a different fly completely , a different colour on the same fly or a smaller pattern this can be the difference between catching and not catching its quite amazing that a subtle difference as small as a colour can led to fish on the bank or not

HIT THE DECK YOU MOTHER

of course you need some flies that are going to hit the bottom and go after those fish that ain't wasting energy in winter those fish that are hard down on the deck then you got to get down there to catch them no good searching the surface if there on the deck and not moving, my local ill cover an area searching the water then ill stick a dumbbell headed something on and cover the same area with a fly on the deck again its ringing the changes just because you ain't caught don't mean there not there and of course i had to dumbbell the critters , see what i mean about addiction ......AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

this will probably the last one i tie as i now have a box full of various colours and variations and the only thing that's going to stop me next week is if its raining hard my fish just don't like it when its raining full stop , and i bloody hope I'm not tempting fate by saying that ......

the green team ready to go , yup with what i also have at home i don't think I'm going to run out for a while

so with that furry critter addiction out of my system for a few days my mind was turning to some more synthetic patterns so i decided to go for a leg stretch out the back of my work and what do you think i found in the rubbish , a great big black yoga mate made of closed cell foam do you know how many gurglers i could get out of that well I'm going to do some tonight because i have an idea .................oh shit its started again

tight lines fly tiers around the world

c ya all soon

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

more adventures in furry critters

more adventures indeed , you know i enjoyed tying up the capsey inspired bunny bugs and cant wait to get out and fish them but it crossed my mind that i could probably do more with colours so here we go heres what i came up with yesterday and any resemblance to a real bunny bug is purely coincidental for those purists who are looking in
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good enough to eat

epoxied head critter tied on a 4/0

(below) a hook up version with dumbell eyes again on 4/0 orange and gold always look good together


invention is the name off the game so with this purple fly all I've done is built up the head in the same style that ken over at pike adventures does but instead of building up the head with thread I've built it up with flash material and added a layer off pike treks Mr bond UV this is the cheapest on the market and the best value don't be fooled into paying for a name folks , looking at this it reminds me of a tarpon fly one thing i think it will demolish fish

the one below is pretty much the same design except I've added an eye and an epoxy head to get it down

black n silver

done a couple in black and silver without the big epoxy heads in fact again I've just added a fine layer of Mr bond to seal the head i quite like the idea of these just being worked slowly off the bottom I'm sure they will come alive in the water, added quite a a bit off flash on this one as I'm sure you know sometimes really flashy flies do do the business

got to have faith

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its true if you have faith in a fly it will fish better for you and you'll fish it more often probably than other flies in your box and therefor catch more fish , I'm hoping that ill have crossed a line with these critter flies you see i did fish bunny's many many years ago but failed to catch on the consistently so they went out of favour with me as i started to develop other flies
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but I'm incredibly enthusiastic about these ones and i have a session planned for Tuesday so ill give them a good go and i actually cant wait to fish em

THANKS FOR THE IDEA BROTHER

tight lines

Dave

(a cave in Scotland)

adventures in critters

ok so latest step by step is done for one of my facebook fly fishing freinds jose who asked for some tips on tying it of course im happy to oblige anybody that wants to learn so jose please enjoy this step by step for a hot core

again all the videos can be found on the pffa webiste www.pffa.co.uk and scroll down the menue for fly tying , and of course if you wish to use any of my videos thats fine but please let me know where there going theres also loads on www.youtube.com please feel free to share anybody that could benifit from them .....................:-)

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furry critters

ken over at pike adventures has always done well on fur critters , bunny bugs and the like in fact a lot of people do very well on bunny bugs for me there what id call my bogey fly i mean I've caught the odd fish on them and they look fantastic in the water so its not surprising that people catch a lot of fish on then so as I've got a trip on this week I'm going to give them a good go

so to the design ken does this really funky bunny bug with a built up head I've always like that fly so decided to do my own version of it so first up was a basic yellow bunny with 9mm eyes on a gold braid type material that i picked up from a local sewing shop and a layer of 5 min epoxy and i have a nice looking capsey type bunny bug and i have no reason looking at this to think it wouldn't catch fish

so with that and with my head being like it is i thought what about adding a bit more sprinkling of sparkly stuff in it , so i thought about it and thought OK i could do a wrap of fur tie in some flash then do another wrap of fur and the end result is below and looks good to me


what I've also done on this tie is added the eyes lower so there not centered on the hook so by adding the epoxy into the space what your are doing is changing the center of gravity with the weight of the epoxy so doing that in theory it will fish hook up , as you can see from the picture below it sits hook up so bodes well for the water test this week



what im actually thinking now is doing a schulpin version of fly i think that would work quite well slow fished across the bottom watch this space , so thanks again for the idea ken .

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must say a big massive congratulations to a Friend Brian who Mrs is now expecting a mini grill I'm delighted for them couldn't have happened to a nicer couple

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also a great big feckin well done to pat cohen who hooked into and landed his first salmon nice buddy full story can be be found on his warm water blog in the blog roll

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and finally i have to say a big massive thanks to my brother ken who after me playing a game of online chequers via skype video i pulled a move on ken which resulted in him going nooooooooo as he realised id just busted his ass for the 29Th time and he fell of the back of his chair i haven't laughed so much in ages ......

so on that happy note ill catch ya all later

mcfluffchucker

(pissing of idiots for 35 years)

bloody good cause

Casting for Recovery UK & Ireland supporter Keith Passant will, once again, undertake a 24 hour fly tying fundraising marathon to raise money for us. He has done it before and has raised an impressive amount for our unique brand of therapy, so we are thrilled that he is putting himself through this epic test of endurance again; many brave ladies will benefit from Keith's generosity.

Keith will undertake this feat at the British Fly Fair International, 30th-31st October. Anyone who wishes to either sponsor Keith or buy raffle tickets to win a unique set of his framed Spey flies can contact him through this email address kptyer@btinternet.. Tickets for the raffle which has over 40 prizes of varying value are priced at £2 each and can be purchased through this PayPal link. Alternatively they can be purchased at Orvis stores nationwide and through Sarah Bristons "Classic Fly Art" website http://classicflyart.com/. All proceeds will go to Casting for Recovery UK & Ireland and Keith is hoping to raise over £3000 this year. Every little helps!!

proud to be part of a great charity


i am proud to have been able to support this wonderfull charity by donating a monster bag of pike flies on behalf of the pffa via nick at deer creek who packaged them up for the raffel at this years british fly fair

no matter where you are in the world just go over and make a small donation because you know we all have wifes , mothers , female freinds do it for them make a donation no matter how small it all helps

http://www.castingforrecovery.org.uk/

theres a paypal link on the page come on guys donate

tight lines

dave

crazy ass fish and twisty leaders

so what a week , yea i ain't been blogging too much this week reason I've been pretty tied up updating websites and stuff that needs doing every now and again hell I've not really been tying flies either the chances of getting near water this week are near on impossible but there is light at the end of the tunnel hell yes my ever hard working Mrs is on her final exams (shes a mature student before you think about calling the cops) so that's going to be done and dusted this week .

which means I'm going to hit the water with some new design subbugs next week and i cant wait these are made to float above the bottom and i reckon fished slow they will be a killer on my local but on the plus side my enforced layoff from fishiness means i have been able to concentrate a bit more on my other hobby's of collecting plastic firearms and vintage guitars

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my interest was sparked this week when i was doing a little research for something else i came across this great little site below and i have looked at these kind of leaders before but never really made any headway but my interest has been sparked because these guys obviously know what there doing and have been doing it for a great many years and that's something you cant argue about so click the picture below to go to there site and see what its all about

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Twisted Leader
Large Mouth Bass to Tarpon and Sailfish ... A Fly Fishing Leader with a twist

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These "Big Game" Twisted Leaders have many applications for the saltwater fly fisher as well as for heavy duty freshwater use. Main advantages:

Extremely good turnover ... handles really large flies.
Shock absorbing qualities of helical twist construction ... lose fewer fish!
Strong and Durable ... the best choice for hard fighting fish and tough conditions.
Ideal for tarpon (babies to the big ones), peacock bass, stripers, redfish, snook, northern pike, large mouth bass, and many other species that demand a tough, great casting, shock absorbing leader. Even sailfish have been landed with this twisted leader.

The small fly in the photo to the right is a 3/0 Deceiver 5" in length. The larger flies are 8 - 9" long tied by Charlie Bisharat. It takes a Twisted Leader to turn these babies over!

Casts like a furled leader, but unlike furled leaders that are made with lightweight 2#, 4#, or 6# mono, these twisted leaders are constructed with heavier mono (20# test for most uses) resulting in a much stronger and more durable 'Big Game' leader.

Twisted leaders are inexpensive in the long run. For all but the largest and fastest species, these leaders last a long time with just tippet changes. Compare that to the longevity of a regular mono leader - no contest! Use sensibly ... inspect and replace after considerable use or catching large fish. If it shows wear, change it!
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hank hewitts crazy trout

Take a look. This barely 12" trout whacked an almost 6" 4/0 deceiver I was throw'n late night on a 10wt in my trout river swinging for monsters. Thought you might get a kick out of it.

thanks for the picture hank

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new stuff out now
threes a great deal of people out there who like to keep records i mean we all know where and when we caught our biggest fish and what we caught it on or as a lot of and , but its always nice to have something in print and heres the ideal thing for a few review and order details

see ya all soon

mcfluffchucker

(demented in a cave in scotland wishing he was fishing for fall pike and drinking beers with my bro over a hot bbq somewhere in vermont )

pffa blog

the pike fly fishing association
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outside the UK

the pike fly fishing association is not just a UK club no we have members in Europe, the united states of America and Canada

if your crazy about predator fly fishing but are not sure a club is for you then you could always check out our free blog to keep up with stuff in the predator fly fishing world , if you in the the states or Canada and would like more info on the club or even pike fly fishing mail our man in the states ken capsey or click the picture above to go see the blog

tight lines

Dave

step by steps

oh my god wow

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check out this awesome new raptor fibre from piketrek i feel a tying frenzy coming on

from the piketrek site

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"Supplied in big double hanks 9" long, this is a superb material for tying pike, zander and perch patterns. If you are planning a trip to the 'States then you really ought to be using this to make up all those bass-bugs that you're going to need! Lovely shiny material with a great "feel" and wonderful moblity in the water.

Terrific for smaller pike-fly patterns up to five inches long or so, and available in some fantastic, life-like colours which are perfect for imitating living, munchable creatures!

Really easy to use and ties in a dream, creating wonderful bushy flies with very little build-up on the hook. Takes all manner of varnishes, glues, pantone pens etc. really well, making the tying of professional-looking predator flies a real doddle! Top class"

a new step by step

if you go on over to the pffa blog you ll see I've added another step by step into the side menu this is also available on the pffa website http://www.pffa.co.uk/

now i know there is a lot of video tying stuff out there already but I'm just adding my bit and yes its not video as such with talking words and moving pictures but I've found a few people have said its easier to follow by doing it this way as they can pause on the clips so a pleasure to help .

i will be doing some proper video stuff at some point

on a different note id like to wish my bro ken capsey a big massive happy birthday i hope the parcel gets there this week

tight lines all

Dave

a little light relif in size 14

OK so I'm known for big flies , medium sized flies , huge flies for pike and predators in fact I've been doing it for more years than i care to remember (below is a picture from 2004) testing out a very early subbug in winter on a shallow loch but i started out fly tying as a child for wild trout on the big salmon rivers of Scotland
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so with the leaves changing colour my thoughts of course turn to predators but predators can be fickle creatures at the best of times so sometimes my thoughts turn to other species that can be readily caught on the fly in the colder months perch are usually up for a sassy looking fly but i sometimes like to chase the humble roach yes the fish i tie flys to attract pike a bit crazy yea probably but i enjoy chasing them with a 5 wgt and this year my brother ken in the states is building me a 2 wgt and i cant wait to try that one and as i say the fish will chase flies in winter the trick I've found is that when the water temps rise even slightly that will be enough to bring them out of there cold water comas and go on the feed

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theres certain things to remember when cold water roach fishing especially on canals like the one i fish , the most important is location under moored boats , turning basins , bridges , and man made features in water all tend to attract fish and are usually a few degrees warmer my local in winter usually sees the fish stacked up in the deeper basins and are always worth a shot the thing i do is to keep mobile sometimes the fish just ain't were you expect them to be so being mobile is a plus

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a roach yesterday

(not giving a shit)

so i decide to sit my backside in front of the TV and top up my coarse fly boxes

its been a few years since i tied up small stuff and some of my flies were looking a bit worse for wear one particular fly which as a particular favorite for perch had pretty much fallen apart

so i had to sit and stare at stuff for a while to align the side of my brain that sorts out size and type of fly to fish i want to catch remember I'm switching from tying on 5/0 and 6/0 to size 14s man that's a drop what i should really do is do some at least once a month to keep me from getting rusty
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these are what i fish for 90% of my canal roach fishing i usually fish them under an indicator in a 3 fly team in winter i fish them almost static with only the slightest moves on them seems to do the trick though and you will pick up other species on them as well , the flies below i usually coat with a thin layer of epoxy to give them a bit of shine i haven't done this yet to these but you'll get the idea
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having done these i realise i am a bit rusty but they will still catch me my quarry and I'm looking forward to doing some more variants on them
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so back to pike type stuff my good Friend Ernie firth called me up tonight and we had a good ol chat about pike flies and he has been mucking around with subbugs and during that conversation he gave me a fantastic idea for a new kind of bug , I'm going to be playing with the idea next week but rest assure its a good one cheers Ernie
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on a final note for music lovers if you haven't seen this give it a play and play it till the end

rest in peace Sid