STILL ALIVE AND OTHER RAMBLINGS

A  POST -GRAB A BEER

well you don't need to tell me its been a totally weird couple of years what with the rona and everything , i haven't been sitting on my arse doing nothing , far from it life has led me down a path as a full time predator fly tier due to having to give up my support work (which i loved despite the hours and awful uncaring management)  due to the arthritis in my knee which has also stopped a few fishing trips but i have learned to live with it and adjust to it so im over the blip now and have some focus but cant believe so much time has passed , but im still here still good and still spelling badly :-) 

so what been going down , well actually quite a lot fly have just been going nuts , mainly down to folks catching a shed load of fish here is an example below is gaz , he's a massive fan of robert the roach and a hellava angler  

so gaz is a massive fan of robert the roach and he recently messaged me this tally of fish he has had on it 

1- close to a thousand pike under 20lbs

2- 23 pike over 20lbs 

this is just one person and ive sold literately thousands of the things so you can imagine how many fish it has actually caught , Jesus that is actually the most productive fly ive ever made , predators actually can get enough of it 

massive thanks to gaz for the pictures and stats , appreciated

what is it about robert the roach 

well firstly its not just flash on a hook i actually blend a few different types of flash to create the robert blend and then well mostly red eyes but i have mixed it up latley with different eye colours and the like and indeed he has evolved into a few different things i,e jigs , sport editions , circle hooks etc but im merely giving clients what they request  so all good and continues to slay em .

some great video is also coming out via eu angler over on youtube , hes also a big robert fan , please consider heading over to his channel and giving him a subscribe , he does some great content 

here he is unboxing some of my flies 

and here he is on the pike 

so what else is happening, well fishing wise i get out as and when i can and as tying lets me , im forever busy and usually i work till 9pm , mabey i should just not sleep hahahahah 

anyway life in the cave continues and i have found a way to upload faster to youtube so I've put a couple of tying videos up if you wish to check them out and hopefully ill get some new stuff up shortly as i can upload while i work , heres the last one i did as an experiment 

WHATS NEXT

well i have a new youtube channel going to be going live shortly which will only be about fishing adventures and will heavily feature myself and woodfish and his carp on the fly adventures there will be catches and instructional videos on his rigs and fly's and the techniques involved  and some fishing videos from me also ill put up a link for the channel next blog but there will be lots of this

 see ya all soon 

mcfluffchucker 

(a cave in scotland)

fresh air at last

 OUT INTO THE WIDE BLUE YONDER

some maybe aware that i have a wee bit of a medical issue with my leg which causes me a bit of pain so my fishing trips are quite limited just now and along with being forever busy in the cave time to get out was going to be limited .and well the cave is always fun .

so im blessed that i live (almost across the road from a harbour) although fly fishing can be tricky here it is my favourite place to do a wee spot of lrf which im partial too (shock horror) although fly fishing will always be my first love, its nice to have that option  to get a quick couple of hours down here and its very picturesque location and  o also love the early morning tides when there's nobody around .

not saying i dont like people but i tend to wind them up when they ask me if ive caught anything 

tourist - anyluck 

me - don't need luck mate im skilled in what i do 

tourist (bemused look) - oh right , have you caught anything 

me - well actually yes ive had a couple of nice carp 

tourist - "carp" you can catch them in the sea 

me - well yes , i mean you've heard of salmon and sea trout coming up rivers from the sea haven't you

 

tourist -  well now you mention it yes i have , well i never knew that , you learn something everyday 

so you get the idea , if your going to disturb my peace im going to get my moneys worth from you but its all in good fun 

so a friend posted on the edinburgh anglers page on facebook a great picture of a gurnard that his mrs had caught there , now i was really surprised as id never heard of one caught there before and i have not caught one in a lot of years so kinda spurned me on to have a go for a local one. 

this is my 5:30 am face yea it was an early tide around 7 am , ben who i was meting wasn't getting down till 6:30 am so i decided just to head down 

i opted for a 1-7 grm rod 6lb briad to 4lb flurocarbon to a dropshot rig with a one inch isomme worm, well i just had a lazy first cast and within 60 seconds and as i bought it in i looked into the water as it came up and saw the unmistakable shape of the fins , it was indeed my target fish . well that was quick lol , beautiful little fish 

next on my list was a scorpion fish (i was pretty much on a mini species hunt today ) i cast back in close to the side where i know the scorpions hang out and after a couple of missed bites i got one , dont now what it is about these fish mabey just the prehistoric look of them or the tenacious fight on light gear but i always enjoy catching them .

on a side note its quite interesting that there seems to be more species around the harbour than in previous years and i wonder if its because of the harbour being dredged what seems to be yearly but certainly something going on and there seems to be bigger shoals of sprat around than previous years so im guessing thats a good sign .  

ben gets lucky

so ben arrives on a quest for his first Scottish mackerel , hes actually tried no end and didn't even get one last year despite his best efforts but i guessed he might today as i knew they were about as i had seen lots of sprat flashing in panic under the water below me 

after about 20 mins throwing a silver lead lure around he got his first one and was over the moon , he ended up with 4 so he was delighted , always great fishing with ben and never a dull moment  

 

so was bound to happen i hooked into a mackerel and what great fun on the light gear, even stripping line and going on long runs , i mean seriously isnt this what the say the tug is the drug , personally ill take that everyday than blanking , absolutely superb sport .    

aerobatic mac , gotta love em 

about the only time i keep fish is when i catch mackerel, very good for you and taste awesome when there fresh ,   

the tide was heading well out and was about 2 hours out from high and i had another scorpion and another couple of macs and that was about it for us as ben had to get away and my pains were starting to annoy me .

one this i noticed was the mackerel were quite fat this year , i gutted the fish to only find the odd sandeel quite well digested which was strange considering the amount of sprats about 

you really can beat this from sea to plate in a few hours the mackerel was baked in the oven with added herbs and garlic and was literally melt in the mouth 

CAVE LIFE

been a fairly hectic week in the cave with an order to finish and pack for Holland  

orange flies are something people usually fish as part of a colour combo (usually chartreus ) but can be deadly with some orange flash running through it as you can see below 

PERCH OF THE YEAR

biggest perch of the yea falls to mike on the pike blog , who caught this specimen on a robert the roach in 6/0 while pike fishing on a float tube on the thames , its been said that the biggest of big fish is a big perch , and i tend to agree , great fish mate .

ALL HAIL NIGEL 

(for he is the messiah)

nigel and i hooked up after he had a problem with a fly hook straightening out at the net and him losing a large catfish , the company i wont name but begins with f m  , now im sorry thats what happens when you buy African made garbage of course you think being a reputable company they would would be top notch but nope yet again another reason to buy from local tiers , i care about the bottom of the net not the bottom line i rest my case 

so nigel messaged me and told me of his issues and could i help 

not an issue job complete , below are some pictures that nigel sent in , caught on the flies he purchases from me 

as i was about to publish this blog i had the incredible news that nigel had caught the second largset catfish in the uk and the fly that caught it has been named "woods red devil" well deserved and couldnt have happened to a nicer bloke 

nigel congratulations 

here are the pictures 

i cant really follow that but nigel with be in the angling times paper in September  chatting about it 

again top angling 

mcfluffchucker (a cave in scotland)

may day may day

 HELLO FOLLOWERS 

well i have to admit despite my best promises time once again has escaped me for many many reasons not just the current global situation we find ourselves in . and of course being busy in the cave doesn't help , but it is what it is 

my cave is my refuge from the madness although this tends to be afternoon and early evenings sometimes into the night if im really busy , I cant really do mornings just now because of the dodgy knee and medications i take before i go to bed at night knocks me out but they have to be taken just now .

fishing is starting to pick up again now that people can travel and there's been some great catches on my fluff pictures will be somewhere on this page so im going to give a brief update on whats been happening in and out of the cave .

CASTING FLIES 

mabey you have noticed that there is a big movement of lure anglers using flies , i have championed this for many years if you follow me you will have seen this and probably the video i did chasing preds on lrf gear with flies , if you haven't here is the video , pike weren't playing that day but it was more about casting with flies .

so as you can see it can easily be done and is a fantastic method when urban towpath fly fishing gets a bit sketchy with people and trees , of course you can also fish these with all the usual types of lure rigs texas rigged , carolina rigged and whatever method you like , a lot of folks like using cherubuska weights and that is also a method i enjoy .

so you dont need to go out and buy fly tackle in fact not everybody takes to fly fishing so this is a perfect compromise indeed i know folks that use my flies deep see fishing over wrecks and catch some bloody good fish so think outside the box and give it a go .

CIRCLE HOOK FLIES

still a bit of a marmite fly as people are put off by the hook shape i do sell a fair amount of these and usually to folks who fish all methods i.e deadbaits with a single circle through the tail root and realise how efficient these are  and to America anglers who have been using them for a good few years , i do a trial pack fairly cheap on ebay if you fancy a try, a devastating way to catch fish  , click the link below

circle hook taster pack

TUBES TUBES GLORIOUS TUBES 

          

tube flies are another fly thats gaining in popularity over the years you can make these things massive and yea i mean massive i recently did a bespoke order where the fly itself was 12 inchs but by adding a segregated separate body you can effectively have a 24 inch fly but is not the weight of a wet sock ,

tube flys are a lot of fun to tye and the theory is that the tube rides up the trace and doesn't give the fish an angle on the hook to free itself  again i sell tubes not massively popular  but the momentum is growing .   

tube flies are very easy to store and you can chose whatever hooks you like to use with them , i prefer the octopus style hooks as they have a small shank and wide gape , as to trace material there are many ways to rig them up ill go into that in depth another time but there plenty out there if your desperate 

a basic saltwater tube in blue 7/8 inchs , also a great freshwater pattern 

 

a more common pike pattern tube that does well in gravel pits probably because of the bream like colours , who knows .

you will see a lot of tube flies from the Scandinavians that have big tails beads , i question why they are needed and think the make things very complicated when its not really needed and not having beads has had zero effect on my clients catches , i may dig a bit more into this but will continue to tye as i have done 

CAVE LIFE  

my website continues to keep me busy and i am frankly stunned a the amount of flies im actually sending out between that and ebay which has actually been an amazing thing as i am because of me knee problem i cannot work in my chosen field anymore so this has now become my main source of income .

of course this is somewhat a double edged sword as i am busy every day tying flies (i also supply a few private customers )

trout and about 

another never ending part of my life is doing fly bags i always seem to never have enough , Sundays are made for printing right 

big sparkly brush flies , they kill they really do they look awesome in the water the have a wonderful profile and you can use them on either fly rods or lure rods just ass a cherabuska weight ar fish them carolina or texas rigged these things are awsome 

so ive now started selling pike sized popper heads through the website fab pike sized sizes that shift a bit of water 

talking of poppers 

these custom poppers are headed to the north of scotland great to make and a real catcher 

more website stock mate and available now , the website is growing nicely if you haven't yet checked it out please head on over i have pike , perch ,saltwater , catfish, coarse fish and a big range of carp and carp zig bugz and remember it post free here's the address 

mcfluffchucker predator flies

FRIED ALIVE 

as far as consistent catchers is concerned the fried alive baitfish has been the runaway success of the year i have actually now lost count of the amount of double figure pike they have caught amazing for a small 3 inch baitfish .

 

so what is it about these things , is it that the pike are feeding on fry is it they just want a snack as it passes by i really dont know but i do know that on one particular scottish loch these things actually destroy the local pike population  if you want to check out the range here is the link 

https://www.spanglefish.com/mcfluffchuckerflies/index.asp?pageid=719810

just a bit of fun - perch chasing fry fly

MORE STOCK 

one of the fibres i use a lot is the pike skinz predator fire from jerkbait mania , chris does some fantastic blends and they feature a lot in my ties , although i pimp the out a lot with flash and add bits and bobs . if your into lure fishing chris has some absolutely amazing hand painted cranks and jerkbaits avalible on his site check his website here 

JERKBAITMANIA 

ROBERT THE ROACH GOLDFINGER 

the gold version of robert the roach is still doing some great fish out and about i blend 4 types of flash into these then hollow tyed i now have a range which you can find here 

full metal racket range

ive been also doing a few flies with tails lately which are going down great with some pike populations

at the moment im pretty much doing these to order but hope to have a dedicated page up shortly 

proof of a flies effectiveness is down to the chew and if you head to the trophy shots page on the website you can find the catches here 

CHEW ON THIS

if your looking for a fly that you can have 100 % confidence in then robert the roach is it , i hand blend the materials myself so you wont get the same fly anywhere else , this really has proved a great fly and some very big fish to its name , you can find it in the full metal racket racket section on the website 

MIXING IT UP

ROYAL BLUE pro predator dubbing is a very fine and soft flash which is ideal for blending into soft materials like dyckers fiber.

when blended in the effect in the water is lots of random flashes , which is a great trigger for getting predators to strike 

more shiny stuff for a customer a lot of my work is bespoke and people will message and mail me there ideas and then ill put em on a hook so if your not sure what you after im always happy to help 

SMALL FUNK

ive noticed over the last few years the trend of smaller flies and the amount of fish they are catching ,and the different species smaller flies catch and its incredible to think that and its not that long in the distant past that the thinking was only trout and salmon on the fly , how times change 

i remember the days when i was lambasted by people for pike fly fishing and now those very same people are sponsored by the companies who care more about there image than the fish the used to kill in the trout streams........funny old world ill just keep doing what i do  

so that's it for now , i have shed loads more to write which i will do in the next blog , which hopefully wont be as long a gap as this one .

you can always find me on instagram , twitter etc or just have a search for mcfluffchucker 

cheers all see ya soon 

mcfluffchucker 

(a cave in scotland)