Tuesday 28 February 2012

new stuff and Reinventing the tube

new stuff and Reinventing the tube
ok so been and found the perfect rucksack for my short sessions I can carry a couple of rods in tubes and it has enough room for my big finsport and the little accessories that I need for a short trip obligatory bag of crisps bottle of water unhooking gear etc. etc. this is going to do the job perfect a real great hiking bag as well think I’m going to get along fine with this purchase
Wychwood Rucksack



Here’s the Features include: Lightweight, 25litre contemporary design, Sweat-proof, easy breather fixing, Weight distributing back protection system, Two rod tube carriers-ring net hangs, Dual Fast access, fly patch store, Zinger hangers on shoulder straps, Ideal for fishing far away marks, Weather and Rot resistant, Full 16890D nylon material


I bought this from a tackle shop here in Edinburgh please click the like to go see them
http://shop.countrylife-edinburgh.com/


Country life is an actual shop you can go in and touch stuff and look at stuff, I do love shopping for bargains online and I fully support the small business online as most of the time it’s just some guys who had an idea and use it to pay for their fishing. I was actually quite glad they had this in stock because to be honest I probably wouldn’t have bought it online if I couldn’t have actually have had a feel of it to see what it was all about and if it would meet my needs fly tying materials you pretty much know what you’re getting but sometimes with hardware it’s nice to have a feel.




I’m doing some subbugs later this week so while I was in the shop I picked up a couple of packets of schlappen feathers as I have a few new bug ideas I want to try out , while I was wandering around the shop I came across something I pretty much forgotten about till the other day when I was digging about in my boxes looking for some fur (that doesn’t sound right does it) but anyway I found a patch of fur that pal Stevie slight had given me , I had got it home and then put it in a box to be played with at a later date , well this was summer last year and yesterday I was playing with tube flies (more on that later) and I found the patch that Stevie had given me so I tied up the red and white tube fly you can see later in this post , and I was very impressed with the quality of the product .


Well it came to me in a flash after looking at the packaging that I had used this company before many many many years ago when they were trading on eBay and I still have a box full of there fox tails in various colours (these I use for a variety of flies) so I was delighted when on the pack that Stevie had given me was a website http://www.foxy-tails.co.uk/ so last night I checked it out and found they had a whole heap of very very very cool furs and tails , if you’re a pike fly fisher who does his own flies then I really can’t recommend these guys highly enough as when I got to wandering around the store today I came across a whole wall full of the sexiest furs in the coolest of colours I picked up a couple of packs (won’t be the last) the results of which will be somewhere down below on this blog post made from there cashmere goat just try some folks you won’t be disappointed……..I’m delighted to have re connected with them and you can expect a lot of these materials appearing on patterns in the coming months for my naturals box


Of course I had to pick up a bag of flash as well kid in a sweet shop

New eyes


I decide also today to pick up a new pair of sun glasses not like we ever get any sun in Scotland but more for eye protection although when I’m using flies that track just under the surface without breaking it, a good pair of glasses to take the glare of the water and see you fly is essential, well it is for me because one the greatest sights that I ever see is a pike chasing down a sub-surface subbug or an ugly betty I simply would not see this without the aid of sun glasses .
These glasses are not the most expensive in the world they only cost me £15.00 and yes they look a bit tarty and flash I’m sure the fish will appreciate the effort I’m putting in, but to be honest I bought a pair of shimano glasses quite a few years ago for around the same price but they have become a bit battered over the years although still very much usable I thought I’d invest I a new pair, I’ll keep the others as a spare pair in the box
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Tube flies
I have a long history of trying tube flies for pike going back long before anybody had probably thought of it there was certainly nothing on the net about tubes for pike, when I first started looking into using them I had been in a posh tackle shop looking for bucktail (and they followed me around the shop didn’t have tweeds on ya see) and I knew that the tubes for salmon that I saw were fairly large big spate river patterns , I still remember looking at then thinking if there was a way to rig them for predators and this was always the stumbling block for me as I could not think of a way to rig them and still be able to change flies easily without having to make up a new wire trace each time .


Of course the tube fly would have an advantage in fact that you get less leverage on the hook as the tube slides away so the idea for pike in principle is good but up till now I couldn’t think of a way to rig them and be able to change flies without a massive headache until now, I’ve now come up with a rig that will allow me to change the tubes fairly easily , well easily enough that I’m happy to fish them and change flies as and when I need to im going to try them out this week with a buddy
Of course no doubt somebody will probably mail me and say hey dave have you seen this


Tying tubes for pike
Any visitors to my website


will know that I have tied some and theres a few patterns on there and youll notice some of them are pre rigged , of course ive now moved on from those but ill keep the page up and add to it as Ive got a lot of ideas swimming around in my head so it will be a cool evolution to watch ill update the wording on the site to reflect this at some point .so now we come down to the tying of the things , well I use one of those adapters that you get to stick in your normal vice I will I think at some point get one of those tube fly vices but they seem to be a bit pricy at the momment so ill stick with the adapter till they come down a bit . so before I fit the tube over the adapter what I do is add some pearl mylar then tie of the back end with some orange flat thread then I place the tube on the adaptor
To seal the deal I use a thin coat of deercreeks tack free uv and zap it for just a couple of seconds with the laser diode this gives you a good firm hold

About 3 quarters of the way up the tube ive tied in a clump of short yellow goat hair and then tease it round the hook then tie down, I then coat this with some diamond hard varnish to protect the mono thread, I’m sure there will be a few purists out there who tie salmon flies and may have stumbled on this post will be cringing at the way I tie these but I’m not doing big posh salmon flies here im doing predator flies so apologies to lord Archie McEwen from lower tweed side for upsetting his stiff upper lip
After this all I do is tie in an orange back of goat hair and add a few plumes of dyed peacock eyes http://www.deercreek.co.uk/Feathers.html I’ve had these for a while and hadn’t figured out what I was going to do with them till now I think the look really nice on the tubes and will give the fly that little bit extra , I’m really quite confident on these , as you can see I’ve used 3d eyes on these but I wanted a little weight so used a 5 min epoxy rather than a uv on the head.


I found a trick a long time ago when I was doing epoxy heads on tubes, because when you need to turn the tubes on a rotary drier you can’t just stick it in the foam like a hook because well you have no hook, so a packet of cocktail sticks does the job perfect just stick the stick into the tube add the epoxy and tick in the foam on the drier perfect, and let me assure you it doesn’t move and says until you want to take it off.


Cocktail sticks in action



So after playing with a couple of smaller patters I hit out on a bigger snack, the tubes I have in box came to me years ago from an old salmon fly tier (quite an interesting story and bloke actually as he never fished in his life but his flies caught thousands of salmon ill save that one for a later date) he gave me them because I was just chatting to him one day and he said he couldn’t be doing with these new-fangled plastic tubes he had been sent and much preferred his old metal ones (na changing it ,its na broken kid he told me) so I ended up with a bag load of plastic , but they were on the small size so I ended up using some of those long plastic sea booms you can buy for sea angling and just chopping them down to size easy and costs penny’s and you can get quite a lengthy fly from them .


So out comes the afore mentioned foxy tails patch and a body was added to the tube and a couple of bits of flash along each side some orange Icelandic sheep hair and I reckon I’ve got a pretty sexy looking fly and looking forward to getting it wet



So of course with the advent of my tube fly second coming of course I needed something to keep the things in, as ill need to store the leaders and hooks separate of course, so found this rather fetching little deep compartment lure box at the local tackle shop at the princely sum of £4.99 and I’m thinking that will carry all I need for now so purchased it

I’ll get loads of the buggers in here, funnily enough I did a quick search for tube fly storage and there were a few new storage systems out there for tubes but I just didn’t fancy spending that amount of money when to be honest a box like the one above does the job just as good, am I going a bit too far with the tubes mmmmmmmm not sure time will tell and the tests I have planned will sort out if it’s going to be worth pursuing doing them
Me being me I needed to fill the box with a few patterns so been tying a few and playing with ideas, I have just worked a very long weekend shift with pretty much 4 hours sleep over the whole weekend so today was a pretty much stay and home and do nothing kind of day, I actually spent the first part of the day watching some fishing shows I had recorded the previous week, but I had the urge to tie up some tubes with the foxy tails id bought last week so I dragged a few bits from the cave to tie some up in front of the TV …..


I decided that within all the tubes that I wanted to try I wanted a fly that will get down fast and I wanted a simply pattern today I really didn’t fancy stretching my brain with complicated patterns so I threw a length of cashmere goat on the tube and added some flash on the back of it everything is tied right pretty much on the nose


Some orange on top and some dumbbell eyes to get it down and to be honest I don’t see why this wouldn’t catch fish as long of my new rig for them hooks em in the first place ( a big special thanks goes out too rich for the eyes).

So far I’m very impressed with the build and profile so I tied one with a chenille body but although the side profile looks great I really don’t think I need the chenille ill still give it a chuck though, I’m toying with the idea of just colouring the tube a matching colour to the back material but although I don’t think it will make any difference just make me feel better. Many thanks to martin from Mscustom lures who sent me this really cool pic of a jack that really wanted a subbug he had tied ,just goes to show they can’t resist the things I mean look how far down this one is crazy absolutely crazy lol

So my bags packed and I’m ready to fish and boy I’m looking forward it
Later folks
Mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)

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