bye bye 2011

ANOTHER YEAR PASSES IN THE CAVE

(Adventures of a hairy fly fisher and fly tier)
So a whole year has passed already and not all plans have gone as I wanted and some have gone way better than expected, its been a funny old year right enough and I have lots of new stuff going down for next year so I guess this year has been a pre curser for the fluff chucking and tying extravaganza and the odd black Sabbath show thrown in for good measure in June.
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So back to the year just past, well I did a fair bit of fishing but not as much as I had wanted really due to my wife starting teacher training at university and me working weekends but this won’t be a problem next year I did however when I did get out caught some bloody nice fish and quite a few as well

Off course predators are always top of my list and I had some very memorable days with some very hard fighting fish and also so bloody frustrating days like the day below , where it was blowing a bloody hurricane and I struggled to find somewhere out the wind when I did I caught fish , but the wind kept changing direction so I had to keep changing spots , as even an anchor wasn’t holding and I must of missed at least 20 odd fish on the surface to subbugs because of the wind towing my line bloody heart breaking but a real adrenaline rush all at the same time and this was in bloody November in Scotland craziness

BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK
I did very very well on blackflies this year and variations off it, the best results came from black subbugs with some silver flashbou running through it this was a friggin killer and the pike attacked them full on aggressive style, the takes were very fast and very furious this is a fly ill be running with a lot next year along with some of my medium flashbou patterns which the fish also seem to love , the only trouble with those ones is that suicidal trout also love them but sometimes that can break a slow day with a bit of excitement

I also took some time out to do some rainbow trout fishing , now stocky bashing isn’t really my thing but I do love to eat rainbow trout , and grilled with black pepper it is awesome , I won’t however go and buy it from the supermarket as I don’t know where it has come from , or even when it was dispatched from this mortal coil , so I much prefer to get a 6wgt out and go and catch them myself and I always cook them as soon as I get home , so pretty much ensuring a great fresh flavour I intend to do a whole lot more trout fishing in the summer but not for the reasons you may think more on that in summer .

FLY TYING GEAR OF THE YEAR
The biggest thing to hit the shelves this year is without doubt diamond hard uv resin from deercreek (click the pic) this has overtaken another major but tacky product that’s on the market in the uk as the best for the fly tier , and actually kits start at 20 pounds uk , people are cottoning on to this and trying it and are starting to get very happy with the results , other uv resins claim to be tack free and at 50 quid a kit you would expect the best but from forum discussions ive seen it is curing tacky so people are switching to this in droves and to be honest I can’t blame them for 20 quid a kit and it cures non tacky …….check there site some top tiers are using it now

The other thing that’s taking the predator fly fishing world by storm is Authanic wire from predator bite here in the uk (click the pic) this stuff is amazing it really is and its changed my leader set up for the better if you haven’t tried then get yourself over to the site and buy a spool completely knowable and tooth proof, so if you’re a pike fly angler then you’ve really got to get your hands on some of this , I used to use titanium wire a few years ago but have knocked that completely on the head as I discovered that the stuff is like cheese wire and if a fish gets deep hooked then you can do some series damage to a fishes mouth I’ve know seen this first hand and won’t use it again .




The thing is I can no longer see the point of fiddling around with clips and crimps etc when you can just knot this stuff in seconds check the video below to see how easy it is


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GRAB AND GO KITS
I’ve also teamed up this year with predator bite to supply some very handy grab and go fly kits (click the picture) these kits are fantastic for those who don’t have the time to tie their own or are new to the sport , the best seller is my streamer kit which contains fly’s for pretty much any occasion and can also be used in saltwater, in fact this kit is proving popular with those going off on holiday to warmer climes as you get the box 8 great proven patterns and a spool of Authanic wire , so all you need is a 3 or 4 piece rod and a reel to go in your luggage and you off these flies will catch you fish anywhere in the world
BUNNY BUGS ARE BOLLOX

Ohhhhhh ok shock horror from lots of you on that statement but you know no matter how hard I try I can’t bloody catch fish on the things

I shall preserver though maybe next year, no idea why I can’t they look great they fish great hell id even eat them what am I doing wrong , I really haven’t a clue maybe I’ll go back and just do a simple plain Barry Reynolds type bunny bug and not do all the flashy stuff with them , maybe it’s just a fly that doesn’t need jazzing up

MONSTER FLIES

I do like to fish big flies sometimes and I had neglected making them for a while as id been concentrating on the smaller baitfish patterns in synthetics so when piking brother ken capsey over at pike adventures posted some of his big musky patterns (think they were called bettys) but anyway decided to add my own touch to them and I called them muskie busters , if you want the full recipe you can find it here
http://www.spanglefish.com/pikeandpredatorfishingflies/index.asp?pageid=296366
And there’s loads of other recipes on my site so please go check it out .
Ive fished with these at the of the season and they were bloody brilliant I actually had a pike hit the thing right under my feet but try as I might I could connect with the bloody thing check out the video below for my attempts

THE GLISS N GLINT PLUS PROJECT

EP FIBER

I’ve fallen a bit out of love with ep fibre lately as I’ve had so many new fibres to play with I’ve kind of left it on the back burner, not that ep isn’t a great material it’s the first synthetic I used all those many years ago when I had to get it from the states as nobody in the uk stocked it and for many a year I tied with it favouring it over my big natural flies of marabou and bucktail and this was the case for many years until new synthetics appeared , of course there was synthetics around but they were more aimed at the trout fisher and to be honest there wasn’t much in the way of material in the packs , so you’d end up spending 15 pounds on enough to make a pike fly , so importing it was the only really way to go .
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Off course these days there’s a massive choice out there for us pike fly tiers mostly aimed at the saltwater fly fisher overseas but can be easily used for pike flies , of course there is company’s in the uk springing up specifically for the uk pike fly tier and fly fisher ill list these later , as to ep well Im going to revisit it next year I have some ideas I’m going to try as I do like the colour range , the thing I don’t like is the price of the stuff in the uk , but now that I can mix it with other stuff i.e gliss n glint plus I can see some funky stuff going down with it in new ties ….

SUBBUGS

Ahhh the subbug (no its still not and never has been a dhalberg diver) has a large space in my fly boxes I always take at least a box of them with me when I go fishing and next year will be no different indeed not , if anything ill have more of them in different sizes and colours it’s a great fly and if you wanna see more check out the subbuggin site
http://www.spanglefish.com/subbuggin/
ADVENTURES FAR FROM THE CAVE

Ive got some outstanding adventures planned for next year including a trip to some pretty remote places where the fish have never seen a fly before including a 3 day trip that will see me and a buddy chasing some saltwater bass and remote trout in hill lochs in the evenings lets me tell ya folks that is going to be a stunning adventure in late summer
Ok those sites I promised you earlier in no particular order

http://www.pikeflyrod.com/ http://www.deercreek.co.uk/ http://www.predatorbite.com/ http://www.pikeshack.co.uk/ http://www.sakuma.com/

so with the year drawing to a close I look forward to the new year with fresh challenges new friends and plenty of fishing and let me tell you there will be plenty of craziness going on , again thanks to all those who visit and follow every single one of you is appreciated

mcfluffchucker
Signing off for 2011
(a cave in Scotland)