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