and were off

A POSITIVE START TO 2013

indeed it is very positive. ive got a whole heap of stuff going on this year and a lot of it will include hairy sidekick the destroyer which include tackling some monster night feeding predatory brown trout in the summer on the surface at an undisclosed location in the highlands with floating baitfish flies (that is really going to be a blast) .

I’m also on a mission to get a big perch from a local venue that I know are there but had little success last year , although I wasn’t trying that hard really , there’s also some saltwater opportunities that im looking into and of course im heading to the usa in october after musky and big northerns (and maybe the odd bass or two) ill be doing this in the company of my brother from another mother and vermont fly guy ken capsey having fished in vermont with ken before and catching over

200 fish in a week im really looking forward to that trip .

And of course the fly tying , ive got thousands of ideas floating around for various patterns and no doubt there will be some new colours of gliss and glint plus to throw a spanner in my plans

im also going to be doing a bit of wild brown trout fishing this year something ive not done for a while , the other thing ill being doing and notice I said “doing” and not maybe is to get the destroyer his first double figure pike , he came so close last year but the fish chucked the hook , nothing to do with the destroyers fishing ability’s it was just one of those things so that's high on the cards seeing his big beaming doughnut shaped face with a large croc in his arms .

First tie of 2013 

 I was on the skype the other day and brother redneck was tying up bucktail baitfish which I thought looked really cool so I tied one up but I used a thin layer of gliss and glint plus matching the colour of the bucktail on the back to add some length to the fly , there is some fibers out there that you cant mix with other fibres but so far ive used gliss and glint plus with ep fibre , slinky fibre , sf fibre , deerhair and DNA and it mixes quite well with these if you mix the likes of congo hair (called funky fibre in this country ) with the likes of ep or the fibres mentioned they don’t take well with each other and act pretty bad in the water so stay well clear .

Anyway the fly aboves recipe

(highlighted is the links to products used)

hook – esox 2 5/0

thread – phantom thread

eyes – 7mm cutthroat gator eyez

belly – white bucktail

lat line - iced mojito gliss and glint plus

back – olive bucktail

the bucktail in this picture is pretty much generic you can use whatever you favorite brand is I favour the buctail from orvis and the glasgow angling center as a close second if I cant get the colors I need from orvis  

JUJU TIME IN THE CAVE

 im thinking im needing a clean up in the cave or maybe some more boxes to keep stuff in , I usually come up with some great storage solutions while sitting tying flies unfortunately I usually forget what they are the next day   

 the boards starting to fill up again and im in need of a bit of a tidy up putting fly boxes away and stuff because by the end of this mouth this board will be full and then they will be heading over to www.predatorbite.com if you fancy some new flies tied directly by me and not some tribesman in a mudhut in Kenya

Small is beautiful

 I saw with interest an article in a fishing magazine which was written by a guy in the UK called Dominic Garrett in which he ties a funky little fly with horns for coarse fish in the UK I actually really liked his design and the way it works so I tied a couple up using diamond hard flex .

I do love to tie smaller stuff now and again it takes me back to my roots as a young child living on the banks of the river tweed and because I lived in a castle in fact the one in the picture below

yea yea I hear you say but actually I did , as a young boy my dad was a butler here to the duke of roxburgh and we lived on the premises and the river tweed in front of the castle is where I started my fly fishing life I think I was around 8 or 9 years old , I used to go down to river with my dad and watch him (try) and fly fish for trout he caught a few and it sparked my interest as a hobby it wasn’t till I was around 10 or 11 that I was given a small wooden box with some feathers and other fly tying stuff and I started making small flies like march browns which I got quite good, at after a short space of time I progressed to greenwells glory’s and butchers in fact these were the only flies I ever used as a kid because they caught me trout , grayling and sea trout from this stretch of the tweed all season I knew nothing about hatches and the like , Id get home from school grab my cheap woolworths fly rod walk across the field and fish for an hour catch fish and then go home for food id do this every chance I got and my crude little homemade flies kept me entertained all summer .

So its nice to sometimes get back to my roots after long periods of tying big predator munches now im noway in the same league as people like Conan the doughnut and other guys out there that I respect for there skills like Fred hannie , Andy Saunders, ulf hagstrom indeed just check out pro team on deercreeks website or facebook page to see some of the most fantastic creations out there

class nymph courtesy of the destroyer

 im now gearing up the fly tying again and I was asked to do a quick video to make a tube fly for pike , as you probably know ive messed with tubes before and am still undecided about them for pike and predators but I shall be fishing them a lot more this year to get a wider picture on there usefulness , in the meantime here’s a little video I did

 so we have a lot of really horrible weather on the way which for me equates to more time at the vice , I had a tying day planned with conan today ,the last few weeks its been called of due to illness both fro me and conan and work stuff so I was really looking forward to getting together for a chinwag and some tying but it again wasn't to be this week ,

at the start of the week I came down with the dreaded noro virus but by Thursday afternoon I was feeling great so I texted the doughnut to arrange a time and what we were going to tie , then this morning (Friday) my step daughter came down with it , then my wife came home from school sick (no my wife isn’t a schoolgirl she’s a teacher just in case you were raising an eyebrow) so today was also called off sorry pal pencil in next week this will be waiting for you buddy

 see ya soon

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)