OF PIKE AND MEN
Ok so its been a
really strange year this year didn’t get half the stuff done I wanted to I
didn’t get to fish some of the places I wanted to and my time is running out
for chucking flies in fact my local has already taken the boats off for the
winter yes what with the strange weather and seasons its really been a crap
year in fact but still managed to catch a fair few fish nothing massive but
that’s not why I do this its all about the method and the enjoyment of fly
fishing ……..
Ive been paying with
a few new patterns these are a mix of bucktail and gliss and glint plus for the
tail / body and come in around 6 to 7 inch’s. ive called them pmt’s because
they take these really aggressively and if your married you’ll know exactly
what I mean
Enough for me and the
destroyer obviously but I must say they do look great in the water
On the loch
Wading barefoot and
trouser less after the destroyers lost tackle seems a long time ago and with a
bit of a nip in the air and he was warned that he had not a snow ball in hells
chance of me being a really good mate and going in for him, he was on his own
on today
Our latest discovery
in fast angler type food is strips of peppered beef from asda (that’s Wal-Mart
to you eric Larsen) 2 for 5 uk pounds and to be honest it was actually really
nice fast and easy food
A peppered beef strip
modelled by the destroyer miserable sod
The algae has started
to die off leaving big floating rafts of green gunk not actually as bad as it
seems as the pike really like to sit under it and the destroyer plucked a
rainbow trout form under it so as far as I can see it doesn’t affect the
fishing
As the bend in the destroyer’s
rod proves
The subbug again
proved its worth and the funny thing is this fly has worked right throughout
the year
So with the subbug working away for the
destroyer I decide to see if the pmt fly still worked its magic so one cast in
and bang yup esox loved it and really slammed it its really strange that other
large flies of 7 inch’s and over don’t work that well on this venue and usually
we fish flies in the 2 to 3 inch range so why these and subbugs do so well is
strange maybe its down to the movement of them who know only thing I do know is
they bloody work very well and not only on this water , I tie a lot of these
subbugs flies for all over the world and they constantly work my brother from
another mother ken capsey also makes them in the usa and he and others do
really well on them, I predict the pmt will go the same way
Sometimes things go a little quite so usually when this happens for a prolonged period of time ill change over to fried alive fly in olive and a sinking line nailed to the bottom and 9 times out of ten we can nail one or 2 bonus fish as the pic above shows
I still enjoy tying
with ep fibre although these days they tend to be one best made with colour
with flash worked through like a hot core fly, although the original hotcore is
made with gliss and glint plus
Talking of gliss and
glint plus
The new musky blend
gliss and glint plus has now hit the shelves and its become a favourite blend
the bottom fly is tied with only musky blend just check out those colours very
cool and when tying up a standard baitfish pattern adding a white belly and a
musky blend back looks stunning and ive tried these in the water and oh my god
they look stunning get some ….
A BRIEF ENCOUNTER
You know not
everything goes the way you want it to and last week on the loch was no
exception we thought we had a good day for it to be honest and things were
looking great until we rowed past sexy loops Mr. will I fish who had been on the
loch long before us (late start don’t ask) how’s it going was asked, not too
good was the reply with only a couple
Of bumps since the
morning not really what we wanted to hear but if your flies aren’t in the water
you aren’t catching so we set about trying a multitude of flys with only the
same half hearted plucks , eventually I stuck a fried alive on and lo and
behold a nice scraper double came to the boat ……
Of course after this
I just had to give one to mr will I fish to see if he could at least get one to
the boat as he still wasn’t having much luck , now dot get me wrong im not
trying to say my flies are better that anybody elses but if I can help with a
pattern that’s catching then ill happily give a fly away to someone like us who
was struggling that day and im happy to report that after a few casts he had
one on and to the boat …….funnily enough he forgot to give me the fly back I
suspect a few will end up being made for his box and off course I will never
mention this episode again ….lol
For no other reason
than I wanted to ive started playing with some smaller but ramped up trout type
patterns for pike the first being this stickleback imitation which is an
adaption of an old trout pattern ive just added eyes and upped the size , its
funny that even after I visualize a fly when its done and im looking at it I
can straight away see how I can improve or make variations on the pattern and
that what has happened here as I amd next going to do one with a dubbed olive
body to give it a more fat stickleback shape and hence we start morphing trad
trout patterns into flies for pike , I suspect my winter with the destroyer
tying flies will consist of a lot of this kind of thing as my heads buzzing
with ideas stay tuned .
Thank you for the Oscar I would like to thank my manager etc etc
etc
Ok it had been on the
cards for a while I had been speaking with a French documentary maker about a
film he was doing on fishing in Scotland for French TV and he had been
interested in pike on the fly so I was happy to help but due to some of his
logistical problems (i.e not having a car here and hardly any budget ) I opted
to fish loch ven in the trossochs as my local loch the preferred venue was
showing 15mph winds which made it not very concussive to fly fishing for a
number of factors so i had a look at the weather for a few areas and lochs I
know to try and find the best option , which happened to be loch venachar in
the trossochs a loch I know very well and if the conditions were right we would
get some fish
We arranged to meet
in callander at the tesco supermarket where me and the dark one could also pick
up some lunch , it was a fairly short day with the boat hired between 10 and
4pm a lot shorter than we normally do but we were just happy to find a water we
could get out on to be honest , he turned up bang on time and pleasantries were
exchanged and the destroyer decided to try and speak French which for me was
the highlight ive never laughed so much in ages haven’t a clue what he said but
with the look on the directors face I didn’t think he was going to get in the
car …….
Let me tell you
something producing fish for the camera is never as easy as it seems on tv the
folks who do the fishing shows will have been on a venue for a good few days
getting footage although they probably make out they have just turned up, and
with the Scottish lochs you never know what mother nature is going to throw at you.
We started with a few
drifts that I knew and the wind was just gently blowing giving us a great long
drift at just the right speed but the loch was well below its normal levels in
fact I had never seen it so low I knew the pike wouldn’t be in one particular
area so doing these drifts would cover a lot of water and the areas I suspected
fish would be.
We filmed for a good
few hours then disaster struck when the engine wouldn’t engage so we had to get
a rescue boat out to tow us in and we changed to another boat and speed back of
across the loch then the wind started to get up from nowhere and white caps were
starting to appear on the waves this was a sign that we would have to get back
across the loch before it got any worse you just don’t take any chances on the
big lochs.
Did we catch? Well you’ll have to wait till it’s on to find
out but rest assured ill post the link when it appears online at some point, monsters
well you just never know stay tuned
Being fisherman
sometimes its hard to go past a water without stopping to take a look and id
always wanted to have a peak at this water but till now never had the chance so
our film maker had arranged to film some salmon anglers and when were delighted
to drop him of at the very river id wanted to take a look at.
Didn't see any salmon
caught but I always rivers very mysterious places and can sit next to one
pretty much all day even without a rod just watching it so even though we only
stopped for 20 mins or so I really enjoyed the moment and beside me and the
destroyer were actually quite hungry and my wife had a stir fry on and as long
as his wife didn't have a better offer he would dine with us although I suspect
he would munch his way through a second dinner also well hes a growing lad
after all
So on that note there
will probably be less fishing reports until march unless we manage to get out
as the weather in scotland is taking a turn for the worse but there will be a
lot of fly patterns coming up over the winter so expect some new video step by
steps some new gliss and glint ties and a whole lot of stoopidness from me and
my little pony the pink destroyer ……
Mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)
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