manflu and tying

MANFLU 

well yes i got it bad , i went into work and my manager took one look at me and said go home dave , to be fair i wasnt feeling great so took the advice and thought id tough it out relax and do a few flies till it was done but viruses can be cruel and by the time i got home i was feeling quite rough so took to the couch wrapped up in a blanket with crap daytime tv , it was hell as i could see my vice sitting a few feet away from me but just did not have the energy to do anything , i sat this was for a few days until yesterday when i finally gave in and headed to the holy seat of fluffy doom and got my brain in gear, manflu is a terrible thing 

TYING

first thing i had to do was some things for brian over at highland guided fishing , all top secret stuff for ferox so no pictures but they look the dogs danglers as my esteemed mate would say and look forward to see how he does on them (think hes out next weekend so look forward seeing to the results) although knowing brian im guessing a few tweeks will be involved,   

so keeping in theme of going back to my roots fishing naturals i have a fair few patters still to make before i hit the water again hopefully on the canal if it ever becomes unfrozen (this is scotland maybey june before that happens) im stocking up on some old favourite colours and materials  so my boxes this year will no doubt be filled with bucktail , marabou , and various feathers of sorts flies 

in scotland especially on the lochs ive always done well with black and yellow patterns mabey due to them being trouty type colours which a lot of wild fish feed on in the lochs but ive always done well on them , so a quick marabou and sclappine feather fly with a few strands of gold flashbou and another pike catcher is done , i usually tye a few of the same pattern as theres nothing worse having a catching colour and losing it up a tree or on some underwater snag or even worse feeling sorry for you non catching boat partner which when you do lend a fly you never see it again as it ends up in his box , yea we all have that friend dont we .

latest off the vice is this badass , i took the idea from flies and natural materials guru ken capsey who does some great patterns and naturals are his go to flies for pike and musky , although it looks big and bulky its actually not ive just used the hollow tye method to give it big profile the materials on these flies work well together and are very mobile in the water , even with the slowest of twitches they pulse and sparkle and depending what hook you use they hang with almost neutral buoyancy in the water in fact i remember testing some in crystal clear water last winter and be very surprised at how good they hang and so looking forward to fishing them this year 

when im tying large flies i sometimes have a pile of material left over so ultimately ill gather it together and add the the ever growing perch box , i really hope this year the perch appreciate the effort im going through to catch the feckers .

its not that my flies dont catch perch in fact the 4lb fish below was caught by good friend ernie firth on one of my down n dirty pike flies , its just i think i need to put more effort into catching them i think hence the canal i think is my best bet . 

  FISHING PALS

the great ernisto

i feel blessed to have some great fishing friends and i keep a very close circle of people who i fish with as unfortunately a lot of people only want to fish with you for there own ends be it fishing spots or the methods or flies you use  and this is especially true in these days of social media so i like to keep it close and most of the guys i fish with have become firm friends and fishing pals .

in fact ive just come of the phone with ernie and didnt realise how long its been since we fished together so we have made a couple of plans for this year where ernie will visit scotland and ill travel down to the badlands of england to fish with him again and im looking forward to that a lot , every time ive fished with him its always been a great laugh even if we blank , i laughed a lot today when he told me the story when he fished with a 2wgt for roach on his local and saw a bow wave cast to it and then realised it was a carp of around 25lb which promptly took off and left him with no line on his reel and needing new underwear .....looking forward to fishing with him again soon  spare pants are packed    

brother ken on tv chasing pickerel

this is me a few years ago with a chain pickerel a member of the esox family and this is probably an average sized fish as they dont go very big up to about 3 lbs i belive but pound for pound these fish really kick up a stink when hooked and are fantastic sport , brother ken loves fishing for them and recently appeared on local tv chasing these fun rockets , click the link below to see ken chasing them, top job brother  

ken chasing pickerel

so with that im off to check my reels and do a little maintenance on my gear , maybe make some new leaders  and hopefully tye some more flies 

tight lines 

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in scotland)