(blog views this week 6,211 thanks folks)
Cold days and freezing nights
Cold days and freezing nights
well the weather still continues to play havoc for me in fact the
only time this week that was half decent for a chuck I was working
and coupled with the fact I caught the most extreme version of man
flu which laid me out for a week and I had to take a week to recover
and even now 3 weeks on I still have the tail end of it never been so
ill in all my life to be honest and women say we put it on
….............
so I was pretty much bed bound and feeling crap for a week I didnt
even tie a fly that week (now you know I was ill) , when I did
eventually arise from my sick bed I turned on the tv and looked in
disbelief at the garbage on the tv , I found myself with the stark
choice of either tying a garbage looking fly while im not at my best
or watching this rubbish , of course I choose the fly option so that
was pretty much me back on the road to recovery , and thought did
pass through my head that there is millions upon millions of people
around the world who fish in one form or another for thousands of
different species why on earth is there not a 24/7 satellite channel
for us , I know in the states the situation is a bit better (when I
was over fishing with ken I was having breakfast while watching a
bass show) but wouldn’t it be great to have one channel that all
the networks could pick up and show on one channel , I dont know but
if your anything like me I will watch any kind of fishing show no
matter how bad , food for thought there I think .
BLOOD
OF THE DESTROYER
sounds like a dodgy film title but no conan has a nasty habit of
spiking himself on my hooks im not quite sure how he does it to be
honest as he doesn’t manage to do it on size 24s although to be
fair he has just got new glasses so maybe this will be a thing of the
past now hes got a nice pair of new glasses so hopefully that will be
a thing of the past
so we had to cancel one tying day due to me being sick so the
following week we hooked up for a days tying and as normal I provided
the material the destroyer provided the doughnuts , the blur In the
background is in fact my son who was off school on holiday that week
and as soon as doughnuts was mentioned he came bounding through at a
rate of knots hes never seen a box full of doughnuts before so he was
quite excited and hes always asking when uncle destroyer is coming to
visit ….....looks like were busted
BACK TO BUSINESS
so it was nice to get back to the vice and before the destroyer
arrived I warmed up with a couple of vermont fly guys inspired
naturals just to get back in the swing of things I do love tying
with naturals and especially deer hair once you get it down with deer
hair you’ll find you’ll really enjoy tying with it and theres so
much you can do with it but I think ill save that for a later blog
very interesting subject
A DAY
WITH THE DESTROYER
it had to be done me and destroyer are loving the DKHB fly its just
one of those patterns where you just know its going to catch and we
decided we really needed some classic colors to add to the ones we
did a few weeks ago , these are big flys tied on 8/0 surgical strikes
the hook point sits around halfway back so hopefully cutting back on
missed takes due to short strikes and leaving plenty of room for
materials , I also love the large dumbells which come from hareline
and are ex large and recessed allowing you to put an eye in , the
other thing I love about these is there are made from aluminium so
they weigh hardly anything even in the large sizes , the advantage is
that even with a lot of material these sink very slowly so you can
track them back in a straight line at any water depth love them and
looking forward to putting them on the watery dinner plate shortly
another classic color more of a perch theme going on here you just
got to have a few perch type patterns in your box work well on most
venues in the UK , of course with the dumbells being tied on top of
the hook shank ,of means the fly will fish hook up so you can get it
right down on the deck with it very rarely snagging up
if you havent tried this style of fly yet you really should as the
dumbell really adds so great action to the fly strip and pause or
figure of eight are both great ways of fishing this style of fly and
of course you don’t have to make monster sizes in this you can
really scale it right down to size 1/0 they all work give em a try
FELL
INTO ORVIS AGAIN
I swear I only went into orvis on my way to work for a pack of
flashbou and while I was in the tying materials at the back of the
shop chatting to the ever knowledgeable will of sexy loops (I was
grilling him about lines he answered all my questions without taking
a breath top man) when my gaze fell upon a hook sharpener you know
its just one of those things I completely forget about until I need
it and ive lost count of the amount of times ive asked a fishing
partner if they had one and they hadn’t (obviously same school as
me) in fact this happened last trip with the destroyer so it was
still fresh in my mind when my eyes fell upon the £8.50 hook
sharpener, expensive well maybe but with orvis gear you know your
getting something of quality that’s going to last for a bit and I
just bit the bullet and bought it , I just hope I don't lose it in my
cavernous boat box or over the side of the boat but that's it bought
anyway
A TAIL
OF 2 TAILS
so while I was plucking the sharpener off the shelf my eyes caught
sight of a chartreuse color bucktail on the end of the the display
rack and funnily enough I needed some chartreuse bucktail (I swear
the people at orvis see me coming and put stuff in spots where they
know I visit when there) so I decided to pick 2 packs up as I knew id
go through it fast , now above you can see the labels are exactly the
same price label etc everything is the same
but it wasn't till I got home that i realized that despite the labels
and colors on the label stating they were the same they were in fact
different shades as you can see from the picture above , not a
complaint really but I may not have noticed this if I was tying for a
customer , let me explain .
I have a few regular guys that buy a specific pattern from me and
they stock up once a year on those patterns now one of these chaps
actually has a bucktail baitfish in a specific color that
incorporates chartreuse's (its his pattern so I wont show a picture or
the recipe) but he catches plenty of fish on this pattern so here’s
the dilemma , hes getting low on his favorite pattern so I tie a
load up for him he gets them and when he compares them to his
original he sees that there’s a difference in color to his favorite pattern although it probably wont make a difference in his
catch rate I think it would maybe effect his confidence as its not
in his favorite color , so although I may not have noticed the
slight difference in color while I was doing them I would have to
get one of the original flies back to try and match the bucktail , so
how did the slight change in color happen did they change suppliers
or dont they have a specific color chart and recipe to do them to ,
or maybe im just reading to much into it and actually 1 or 2 shades
dosnt make a jot of difference to the overall effect of the fly
chartreuse , off chartreuse , fluro green or something else
BACK TO
THE BENCH
just before I went to my manflu sick bed for a week I started on a
new gliss and glint pattern but above was pretty much as far as I got
before I could do no more , ill get round to finishing it sometime
soon if I can remember what I was going to make oh well
so when I did get back to vice it nice to start with a couple of
really simple gliss and glint baitfish patterns , its kinda strange
the more I tie with gliss and glint the less materiel I use on them
and the better the fly looks and lightweight my god the hook actually
probably weighs more than the amount of material on the hook which
actually creates a better movement in the water than an over stacked
fly , in fact if you look closely at the fly below you should be able
to make out
the
hook shank through the material that’s how little material im using
in these ties at the moment and of course the bonus of that is that
you get more flies out of a pack for your money as well as an
outstanding looking fly
prep
for the new season
the foam in my boat box is looking somewhat like a dart board so with
the new season fast approaching I splashed out on a new bit of foam
for the inside lid
nothing subtle just cut it to size and stick it on the back of the
old bit job done off course it will need changed I think this time
next year , really the foam in the back of the lid is just a place to
allow your flies to dry out and keep your favorite patterns handy ,
although I take a load of boxes full of flies I can pretty much carry
all the flys im going to use on the foam but as anglers we like to
be prepared and im no different I hate going out on the water and
thinking wish id bought x fly with me , ive tied so many cool
patterns this winter I think its going to take me a couple of weeks
to try them all , ahhh for the love of fly fishing
BACK TO
WORK
had a fair bit of work to catch up on well I was around a week behind
my fly orders luckily id mailed the customers who I was going to have
to delay there orders for a week but they were cool about it and most
said they couldn’t get out anyway because of floods and snow and
pretty miserable weather so it all worked out good and there was no
problems except finding enough hours in the day to do all the stuff I
needed but im up to date now just got an order of subbugs to finish
tomorrow and im back up to date bloody illness is an awful thing I
mean you cant really get someone else to do it can you .
Ive also been busy getting some new stock ready for delivery to
www.predatorbite.com so if
your looking for some new flies then head over and check them out
ill be adding a whole lot more new patterns over the next few weeks
and months and of course they are also the home of authanic wire the
best trace material out there
BROTHER
KENS CARE PACKAGE
ever since ive known brother ken (Vermont fly guys) and that’s a
fair few years now and we have always exchanged what we call care
packages that can be anything from hooks to fly tying materials to
dvds or in my case ken sends me my beloved rosies Vermont beef jerky
in every pack (none better) so when the brother got a new vice, he
said I could have his old renzzeti vice , holy mother of god
seriously that is awesome as I had tied on it when I was last over
and was very impressed with it but unfortunately my budget couldn’t
stretch to that being married (married anglers will know where im
coming from) now not only that the bro also got me a new pair of my favorite crocs which I cant get here in camo add to that some USA fly tying and American angler magazines and to top it of it got past
customs without any duty needing to be paid so I got to brother you
have surpassed yourself in generosity this time bro ….........
but it works both ways and shortly theres something really special
heading to brother ken(he collects old tackle) in the form of a very
early 1900s wooden hardys salmon fly rod that belonged to the duke
of roxburgh and was used by him on the world famous river tweed man
the story's and the fish this rod has caught is something else , I got
the rod from my father who was a butler at the castle the duke lived
in he was given it by the out going butler who was retiring it was in
turn given to him by the duke of roxburgh so a real special rod
heading his way along with some magazines hooks and a few over things
enjoy bro …...
TV
ANGLERS
im going to throw something out there for you to think about
regarding famous TV anglers (more in the UK than anywhere else) now
im going to tell you a little story , I once had a membership on a
very exclusive pike and catfish venue in the uk and I once spent 2
days on there chasing catfish and pike with shock horror bait . Now
over those 2 days I had a pile of pike up to around 20lbs and I also
had a near 30lb catfish a great couple of days fishing and I also had
a few on the fly rod which I used to take with me. So we packed up in
the early morning of the 3rd day and headed home .
I received a phone call later that day from the venues bailiff saying
that a very famous tv angler had turned up with a film crew to record
a program on pike fishing , the unfortunate personality had chosen
my spot to fish and proceeded to catch bugger all in the end he took
a lure rod and wobbled a few baits from a different spot to catch a
few for the program .
Now this got me thinking about this and here’s the thing there’s
a lot of hero worship in the UK with regarding guys that catch a lot
of big fish for the TV and they can do no wrong best angler that
there ever was etc etc but what people sometimes forget is that for
the 1 hour program on the TV they may have fished anywhere up to 3
weeks for those 1 or 2 big fish and it dosnt show the hundreds of
small fish that they caught trying to get that big fish and you know
as my story above shows that if you have access to the same
privileged water as the tv personality’s you to can catch the same
fish and ive also heard on the grapevine that some fish are actually
caught by crew members or even days before the TV people show up and
are retained until needed a very shady area indeed no doubt the truth
will come out sometime .
I’m not criticizing these anglers or program as I do enjoy
watching them and there’s very little good angling on tv these days
I mean I really wish these people rather than chasing x species of
fish and do or die till that get specimen size fish would show rigs
technique and general watercraft to catch whatever species they were
chasing, this would be a lot more helpful for people coming into the
sport than a whole program to catch just one specimen fish.
However there is some very good program out there one being UK angler Jeremy wade in search of myths legends and beasts of the water
which are very well made and don’t patronize the person watching it
highly recommended viewing and with no pretense if he don’t catch
it he don’t catch it but its bloody enjoyable watching him do it .
The green factor
yup robson green he of extreme fishing fame some anglers love him
some anglers hate him me I find him very funny to watch its just like
watching your mates home made fishing road trip video OK he’s a
Geordie but don’t let that go against him , he actually makes great
fishing programe and he does stuff that you’d never see other
celebrity fishers do and the other thing is he’s actually quite a
good fly fisher love him or hate him his program are very funny if
you take them tongue in cheek I think hes on around his fourth or
fifth series of extreme fishing show on terrestrial TV and that is no
bad thing he must be doing something right just I mean how many other
famous anglers would walk out of an Alaskan river river in winter
naked except for a salmon covering his family jewels because he lost
a bet with his guide if you see him on the bank though just dont
mention his number one single .
See ya all soon folks
mcfluffchucker
(a cave in scotland)
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