last post of 2012

Pass me a doughnut ill be back for breakfast

dont time fly when your having fun , well fun ive not really been having as such as what with my job going crazy the family gearing up for Christmas and the odd spot of illness that's been doing the rounds ive pretty not had much time to get a blog post together but I have been up to a few things read on fellow fluffchucker and all will become clear

 first off I had the destroyer round for a fly tying day and he always brings a choice collection of doughnuts with him in fact not much tying gets done much of a distraction sitting there besides us so nothing gets done till we fortify ourselves 

 the destroyer as ive said before makes some of the most amazing nymphs so its been a pleasure these past few months teaching him the fundamentals of pike and saltwater flies and its been really funny watching his face as I place 8 inch’s of material onto a hook those 8 inch’s would probably do him for a year in trout flies , but he getting the hang of it and starting to produce some very cool flies himself and he’s actually getting the confidence to fish his own flies as well  

 he also a complete convert to deercreeks UV resin after using another inferior well advertised product he can actually tell the difference and as a non biased view says its better , hes started doing some really amazing buzzers ill do a feature early next year on his flies as they really are quite amazing , but this day he was round doing some patterns for saltwater bass fishing trip we had planned so a few eels were called for and as always he picked it up dead quick and we were churning out quite a few for our trip

 heading into the salt

 I tend to take only the bear minimum of stuff when I go saltwater fly fishing a waist coat or rucksack is about it and in this I have as you can see from the picture a few boxes of flies , unhooking gear, water , wipes leader material and that is about it everything you need for trundling around in the salt . Has to be said a few pies and a couple of doughnuts would be added to the rucksack if im fishing a long day  

 I have a few flies of choice when it comes to mainly sparsely dressed bucktail patterns , thin in profile to emulate a small sandeel or fry of some kind these always do well for me with white with red dumbbell eyes outscoring other colors when the going is tough

 the ever versatile thundercreek minnow also has a place in the box I finish the heads of with deer creeks diamond hard uv which pretty much makes em bomb proof , such a versatile fly the thunder creek, ive tried making them in synthetics but I just cant seem to match the look or feel of using bucktail to make them but whatever the fish still love em  

 pink is another colour I love to use in the salt , this time pink bucktail back with a white bucktail belly and a DNA flash tied on a hook eye and fly clouser hook this color also works really well for pike believe it or not give it a try

 sandeels of course are another must have for any saltwater fly fishers box I have a couple of favourite patterns that I use above is eels made from orvis superhair it has a nice crinkle in it which keeps the eel fairly stiff in the water the head is finished with deercreeks diamond hard uv tied on hookeye and flys esox 2s

 the other is a basic DNA sandeel with small deep water dumbbell eyes a great simple little fly that takes a amount of fish and pretty easy to make as well . So with that I was ready to go , unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worse and our trip was scuppered the sea is not a mistress to play with and I dont take chances so we ended up back at mine tying flies and well we had doughnuts to eat so we just made the best of a bad day  

 the destroyer is like a sponge at the moment wanting to suck in all the tying styles he can so with today being blown off I decided id show him the first steps towards making subbugs so I showed him how to stack and trim and mix colours with sheephair to make some tasty looking snacks , this bullhead is designed to be fished on or off the bottom short sharp strip and pause will bring this up and then it will sink back down , a great fly when the fish are playing hard to get and sulking on the deck ….........

 conan as always did a fantastic job with his first tie (his is behind mine)  

 THE DEERCREEK FACTOR

fly by markus hoffman

been a great year for materials from deercreek and the last ties of this year prove without a doubt that gliss and glint plus is the greatest material ever made honestly they just keep delivering the good time after time this material looks absolutely unbelievable with glints and flashes that really does look like a fish in the water do yourself a favour if you havent already then head over to www.deercreek.co.uk and click on tying materials and you’ll find gliss and glint further down the page , check out the cool colour chart and at only £1.99 a pack its simply does represent the best value out there without compromising on quality , all my flies also feature deercreek eyes , they have now become the market leaders in eye design if you see others out there that look the same then you know where the idea came from go with the best folks  

 team 2013

 hook eye and fly

our predator hook site continues to grow  

 we are adding new products all the time we will be shortly adding these funky new black night streamer hooks very similar to the orvis pike and musky hook this is a fine sharp hook they ain’t bending off with these hooks

offset baitfish 

 we are also stocking this very nice offset baitfish hook great for baitfish patterns and laser sharp the offset helps hook up rate and also with an offset you will find you have a greater lip hook rate than traditional j hooks an advantage for the fly fisher

PHANTOM THREAD

 we are also stocking phantom thread a fantastic mono thread designed for synthetics , normal mono threads can snap quite easy , a problem ive had when applying a bit to much pressure to materials , phantom thread has been designed to be 30% stronger than normal mono threads making ideal for the likes of ep fire and gliss and glint plus all these products can be found over at hook eye and fly you find the link in the links menus at the side of the blog

2013 is gonna rock

as I write this on boxing day 2013 and christmas is thankfully behind us , I have a whole heap of cool stuff to look forward to next year me and the detroyer will be back on the pike around the end of feb early march and mabey some grayling up till then if the weather is kind to us ill be disappearing to the Mediterranean for a week in the summer in search of a few exotics on the fly and in october ill be heading to my second home and american family in the form of ken capsey and vermont fly guys in search of northerns and muskys in the lake champlain area and to be honest im stoked and cant wait to get back last time I was there I had 251 fish on the fly in a week and a whole host of different species , theres also going to be some chasing of some cannibalistic big brown trout that enter a small river from a big dark loch and feed on small fish in the shallows of the feeder river , for me as a predator fly guy who fishes baitfish patterns this is going to be a rush if we pull it off the plan of attack on that one is 4 inch gliss and glint plus baitfish fished on the surface in the dark what a rush and of course plenty off mayhem throughout the year with fellow maniac and regular to this blog conan the destryer  

 so to sign of for the year id just like to thank all of you for visiting this blog from around the world the kind messages I get sent (I do reply to them) to the people at deercreek who blow my mind and keep my creative juices flowing with there incredible products to piketrek for the pikesaber my trusty weapon of choice for the past 3 years (never failed me) of course to conan my Scottish brother in crime for all the shit we are going to get into in 2013 . To www.predatorbite.com who stock my flies and give me somewhere to chase monsters and of course ken capsey and Vermont fly guys who always keep me in check (Brian get the steak ready) .

BEST WISHES FOR 2013 SEE YOU ALL ON THE WATER SOMEWHERE IN THE WORLD

DAVE MCFLUFFCHUCKER

(a cave in Scotland)