up and running

got out last week although only for trout but it was good to be out chucking flies , this week sees the temperatures rising a bit further and as you can see from the picture below i took on the way to work no a drop of snow to be seen so the sign's are good for getting out on a big Scottish loch next week chasing pike with the flies so my mood is quite upbeat just now and really looking forward to it

as I've said I'm doing a range of flies for the chaps at piketrek (i had a rant the other day about mass produced flies) I've now finished them and just have some written stuff to do before i pass them on to them I'm really excited about this as the flies are the dogs , they will be available through piketrek shortly stay tuned on the subject of piketrek i hear the pikesaber is featured in a major new predator fly fishing video where some enormous fish get caught on it well as ive always said pike fly fishers make the best gear because they know whats needed in a rod unlike a lot of other company's that are just jumping on the bandwagon to make a fast buck , funny these are the same company's that wernt interested in developing anything flys or rods said it would never catch on....... remember if your going to spend your money on anything spend it on company's that know what there talking about don't jump on the designer name game it will cost you in the long run

above i know what I'm doing i know what makes a good fly i know what turns predators on you cant beat experience stay tuned

tale of ep fibre is it the end
well a bit harsh that statement really no its not the end of ep fibre for me its just that there so many other fibres out there I've found myself using other synthetics a lot more , but really theres nothing to stop you mixing things up a bit i mean theres no hard and fast rules that say you must only use e.p with ep , take for example the flies i tied up last night at work (i have a great job they don't mind me doing this) a very simple bait fish pattern to make but I've added some of that great piketrek spectrum twist just before i hollow tie 4 clumps for the head and body bulk and you get a quite tasty fish pattern

ep fibre has its place of course it does just nice to mix it up I've added a couple of inch's of spectrum just behind the head and this gives not only a nice subtle flash through the fibre but also with the addition of some some deercreek gator eyes it makes for a very hot strike point


I'm still buying ep fibre and I've still got a massive amount of it left in a box so ill keep using it for various patterns its not really oi don't like it as a material i think I've just fallen out of love a bit with it , and in the UK especially it bloody expensive my local orvis shop has it at nearly 6 pounds UK , that's bloody expensive for what is basically unwoven carpet fibres there is just as good cheaper alternatives out there , or maybe bring the price down a bit to bring it into line with other synthetic products , anyway the fly above I've not added specturm all I've done is added red marker on the fibre before i put on the next layer on this works well also if you don't want to complicate stuff .......

so also i find myself leaning back to the pike trek synthetic fibre I've become very used to working with this stuff now and I'm starting to experiment a bit with it like adding a coloured marker over the top of the materials and thinking a little outside the box which is always good fun I'm looking forward to see what they do in the water , of course i have an idea what there going to do from the build but always nice to test them in battle

well the rest of this week will see me playing with some gurglers and doing a load of doom bugs and maybe some subbugs as well as I've not done any deerhair for a while so be good to play

if your heading out this week have fun and remember to check out some of the blogs in the blog roll as there is some great stuff out there and you may even get a few new ideas

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)