seasons grettings from the cave

THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

so a few days away from Christmas and hope your all looking forward to it and id like to say have a good one to all who visit here.

i did plan to do a lengthy post about the state of predator fly tying in 2015 but ill save that till my next post as i have quite a lot to say on the subject from my own prospective .

so for this post ill keep it short and sweet and just throw a few patterns out there that ive been doing recently  

black ep baitfish

hook : 6/0 octopus

fibre : black ep

eye : animal eye 8mm

thread : clear mono

flash : black flashbou

big black ep

hook : 6/0 octopus

fibre : black ep

eye : animal eye 8mm

thread : clear mono

flash : black flashbou

now the 2 flys above both made with the same materials but both look and work and look very differently in the water , although the bigger fly looks very bulky it is in fact not , its tied using the least material i could get away with , what you have is a big fly with bulky profile in the water and hardly any weight   

ICE9 BAITFISH

hook : 5/0 ultra strong aberdeen 

belly flash :platinum micro tinsel from castlefeathers

back flash : rainbow micro tinsel from castlefeathers 

eye : deercreek gator eye 8mm

thread : clear mono

BIG BLUE

hook : 6/0 etra strong aberdeen

tail : grizzled metz cape

body : blue bucktail

thread : clear mono 

flash :blue flashbou

(this fly incorporates a rattle tied in the bucktail)

black streamer 

hook : 6/0 aberdeen

tail : black saddle hackle x4

flash : black flashbou

thread :clear mono

head : 2 palmerd marabou feathers (black) 

this fly also has an inbuilt rattle and being marabou has a fantastic pulsing motion when strip paused 

mixing it up again

nice to see flys appearing on facebook groups have been made by using both  natural and synthetics  , i harped on some time ago ago about doing just this and there was no reason on earth not to add a bit of bling to your fluff 

you know sometimes you just look at a fly in the vice and you dont want to put it in your fly box or even fish it , this fly was one of those moments anyway the pattern is  

hook : 6/0 octopus 

fibre : belly white ep / back pink ep fibre 

overback : blue grizzed metz

eye : deercreek 8mm

flash : olive ep flash tied in behind the eye and overtied with ep fibre

thread :clear mono

so thats it for Decemberer said i was going to keep it short , id like to say many thanks for all the views this year and visits to the page  next year will be much of the same except ill probably be out more fishing and of course even more flys.

and i hope to be tying overseas as well this year so watch this space , and many thanks to all those who take the time to email me with questions its always a pleasure to talk to you.

so i bid you farewell and for those of you lucky enough to be out fishing over the festive period i had you catch plenty of lumps and stay safe

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in scotland)

life on the edge

LIFE ON THE EDGE

darn where has this year gone, as i write this the time is 3:30pm ive just finished work and its nearly dark , where the hell did summer go where did all my fishing hours go its nearly Christmas for gods sake , oh well another year done , not that ive been sitting on my backside doing nothing, ive been bloody busy tying flies for clients who have been out catching some bloody great fish on my flies but not on my rod is there something quite not right about that funny old world .

but next year will be different as i will be out a lot more as ill be teaching the delightful cazz the fine art of feather and fin , everything from small stream trout to saltwater to chasing old esox on the fly something im looking forward to greatly but that's next year  and i also have some stonking trips with brian over at highland guided fishing   trolling my special little fish crack snacks for ferox (this makes me excited) have been working with brian on some ferox flies especially for trolling and so far brian is quite excited about the results so far , and to be honest we got started on this fairly late last year so next year i think is going to be an eye opener i think .....watch this space for whisky fuelled ferox antics.  

SUBBUGS

i need to be filling my subbug boxes up over the winter as well , bloody flies are so popular i end up giving loads away the reason is quite simple i met people we get chatting about flies and inevatabley it get round to deer hair flies at some point and i show my subbugs and i get the standard response "oh a dalberg diver" er no its a completely different fly and has a completely different action oh heck here take one try it , so my box gets quite sparse as i have a lot of these discussions over a year .......its a subbug people  

so get some vice time to myself for a few hours and im quite taken in the last few months to start going large again , i (for regular followers of my blog will know) have mostly been tying small stuff over the last few years for my box and i have more than enough (if thats possible) for a few seasons and ive been doing large stuff for bespoke ties , but ive been playing for some years with mixing natural materials with synthetics and to be honest the results can be great and they look fantastic in the water as well as out and it opens up a whole new world of possibilities , bellow is a few of the latest ones  sure to be more to follow 

the whole idea idea on this i suppose is to get a really big fly that is also very light to cast with ease all and these certainly do the job and with using different materials your also creating material contrast as we know synthetics fish differently to natural materials so by combining the 2 you really are creating something different and hopefully interesting enough to get a fishes interest , i suppose in human terms its like having a deep fried mars bar (scottish delicacy for tourists for my non scottish followers) you know it shouldn't work  but you still have to try it .

so how to go about it well the easiest thing i suppose would be to do a step by step but due to lack of time this week i guess is just to try and explain the process.

the fly above has been tied with the worlds greatest synthetic, gliss and glint plus from deer creek which basically makes up 80% of the body and the material is the reason you you can make a big light fly so all you need then to do is add the naturals of your choice , so how do you go about choosing them , well bucktail head is always a good starter and maribou also works well , then have a dig and see what you have lurking in your boxes.

i love using guinea fowl as cheeks , you can get these in lots of different colours and in a bag you get lots of different sizes and its cheap at around £2.37 (uk) a bag its a cheap way to add something different to your fly only thing i would say is make sure you match your sizes of feather or you will end up with a lot of miss matched sizes and then theres jungle cock as well to add a bit of flare , the fly above has been tied using just these mentioned materials and a good way to start experimenting .

so taking it a couple of steps further besides the guinea fowl and jungle cock , ive added a couple of barred saddle hackles (one on each side) and some peacock hearl along the back and of course the gliss n glint plus for the main body , you can see on this fly that it has a good big profile , but again incredibly light to cast and has a killer action in the water.  

almost the same tie as above but used tip died bucktail again nice profile .

so have a dig through your boxes and see what you have lying around doing nothing think outside the box and most of all have fun .

all the flies above have been tied on 7/0 sakuma mantas , these are a fantastic hook and are needle sharp but if you plan using them close to the bottom on rocky areas check your hook points regularly as they can dull .  

so there we go never a dull moment and still going strong , i think any hopes of getting out fishing have been dashed for the the next few weeks but i will be spending a serious amount of time at the vice knocking out new patterns and catching up on some weird stuff in my head that i need to put on hooks .

oh and watch out for the next blog where im winding up some african scammers big time, these people really are stupid.

life on the edge my friends 
mcfluffchucker 
a cave in scotland