trout and about

OK so I'm primarily a pike and predator fly angler that's what i love to do that what i like to tie for , but the title of my blog is a matter of life and fluffchucking i.e my life and chucking flies after fish , you may have seen in a post or 2 i sometimes go to the odd stocked trout fishery for a couple of rainbow trout to eat (i don't trust supermarket trouts) .

as a young boy i grew up trout fishing on the famous river tweed where i honed my skills as a fly fisher and spent many a winter while in my room tying up march browns and the like . so with a little stream full of brown trout and the odd grayling a stones throw from my house id be daft not to have the odd chuck down there , its in the city but i go to spots where i don't get bothered by the usual "caught anything mate" "you should try a worm mate" moron brigade , i can be at this spot in 10 Min's and its nice to break out the 5wgt and go and play here even though the fish are not massive a fish of a pound would be a specimen but they give you a great spirited fight in the shallow clear water , and to be honest even if you don't catch its great to be out in places like this

i have a lot of respect for the guys that make trout flies i mean have you tried getting material on to a size 24 hook let along some of the things that people like ulf hagstrom and fred hannie tie just to mention a couple of names , so i have to laugh when after nearly 12 months of tying monster pike and saltwater flies on size 4/0 and above i once a year stock up on some favorite patterns for the river , although I've no idea what I've done with last years lot , probably in a box somewhere from last year , can take me a few gos to get it right on on a size 22 or 24

so theres really only a couple of patterns i need for here and they are pretty basic spider type patterns peacock body's with cock cape and that's it nothing spectacular but they do the job

so here's the basic spider pattern I've tied this fly will always catch me fish down there

this is just a slight variant on the spider in that I've added a fluro tag to it , the reason for this is that the local canal is on my route to the river so as I'm passing at dawn especially in the summer you'll often see roach on the surface and they love these , they will take the normal spider but they prefer the tagged version so i always carry a few it would be daft not to cast for 20 Min's or so to some rising fish before i hit the river and the roach are great fun of the light fly gear

so that's my plan for opening day on the river , back to the pike flies tomorrow as I've had some funky new eyes from deercreek to play with

happy days spring is here

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)