Thursday 28 January 2010

HELLLOOOOOOO THURSDAYYYYYYYYYY

hey hey well I'm a happy camper why well I've really got the vice head on this week , ya see if you've been following events in the last few days you'll know I've been raving about the new ken capsey designed fly called the kc bait fish now you'll know that Ive made a few of my own posted elsewhere on my blog and I've played with a couple of ideas as well the bleeding bait fish is really causing a storm and I've actually had calls from Friends who have used it and say that its quite remarkable that on the pause the thing actually looks like its bleeding .......RESULT cheers for the feedback fellas

so I'm on the run again with some new kc designs full breakdown below each one and I've been requested to do a step by step on this on the website i will have to of course clear this with ken as although I'm working with him on the designs it is his idea and I'm not going to claim it as my own even with the variations ........

so onto the variations



this has whiting saddle hackle built into the tail and on the flanks overlaid with buck tail



body material is yak hair with a buck tail collar and epoxy head should be a great mover and shaker in the water



under body is yellow schulpin feathers topped with black orvis ultra hair and a front section back of black buck tail



had to try it incorporating magnum zonker strip so what we have is a tail of white zonker a back of olive zonker ringed by white and olive buck tail the reason for adding the buck tail is to give it a belly shape when wet .......half eyes are are again from Richard his link is on the top right of the blog

it had to happen again sooner or later


before you say what the feck is that , well this is the wife's second attempt at tying a fly so i thought id share my pain with the rest of you i don't think i should suffer alone.........

tight lines till tomorrow fellow flingers

mcfluffchucker
(a cave in scotland)

Tuesday 26 January 2010

the tuesday tie off

does not a week go past fast blimey , well the challenge set by me this week was to produce a pike version of your favorite fly as a kid , well for me my best ever catching fly for trout when i was a youngster was the bloody butcher below...


a hell of a fly for me when i was a kid standing in the waters of the river tweed with my dad at midnight sometimes till 2 am on school holidays it was a fly that would catch me trout , sea trout and i once had a salmon take me right to the end of my backing when i was around 9 or 1o on one such moonlight night quite an experience for a youngster , maybe that's why i get such a buzz not only from fly fishing but from pike fly fishing maybe it awaken memories of those nights with my dad on the river .......

so my choice being the bloody butcher and i have to say I've really loved doing this tie off and I'm pretty sure kens going to like it to as he as a kid probably was catching bluegills , smallies , and the like as a kid so ill be looking forward to seeing what he comes up with .

there are a few variations of the butcher but the pattern i used is basically the same as the picture above all I've really done is changed a few materials round and added eyes remember we are tying flies for predators here so here below is what i came up with and i will be fishing with them as i think they will do the job nicely .....

2/0 predator bloody butcher


body wrap on this one is plain old silver flat wrap the tail is buck tail with a small clump of caribou to give it a wiggle

2/0 predator bloody butcher

body material on this is pearl Mylar wrap

4/0 predator bloody butcher


body on this is a thick silver chenille wrap

predator bloody bucther 4/0


so there ya have it my favorite fly as a kid pikearised and i love it now if you head on over to hen pecked capseys pike adventures at http://pikeadventures.blogspot.com you'll get a peak at what hes been up to .......

and a big thanks from us for really getting the idea on what we are doing we really do appreciate your messages of support and hey if you don't get it well just enjoy the pictures

tight lines fellow flingers c ya tomorrow
mcfluffchucker
(a cave in scotland)

Monday 25 January 2010

bleeding kc baitfish

the other night i was watching a fantastic little video from a guy called mike Williams now he was tying a little wounded minnow trout fly at a show in the states , and i was thinking what a great little fly and it would be perfect for smaller predator species like chub and perch . so I've been milling this over in my mind for the last few days thinking what to do with the idea ,

well it came to me in a dream last night my eyes shot open a 6.50 am at 6.55 am i was at the vice with large coffee hands a flurry of activity mind going into colours overdrive . you see just the other day as you'll see in my post from yesterday ken capsey introduced me to the kc fly and the wounded bait fish method would fit into that pattern fantastically .......

the kc freddy kruger bleedeing baitfish ouch ya mother that hurt



the theory behind this is that the materials that the main kc will lie flat when wet forming that great baitfish profile so with the marioubou having far more movement than the bucktail and superhair when you stop the fly after a strip the bucktail will prettymuch stay in position while the marioubou will flare out to the side i.e wounded baitfish see pic below ............



the kc its only a flesh wound bleeding baitfish



the thing with predators is they are oppertunist and what will stoke a fish up more that having a bleeding snack in its view ......that will provoke the strike instint in the fish which is why fly fishing and lure fishing is such a succesfull pair of methods over bait fishing where really you are waiting for the fish to feed with fly and lure you can force the fish to attack just for the sake of it even if its not hungry because you are tapping into the predators reflex action to a distrssed fish .. i mean you go to the shop buy your favorite thing to eat dosnt mean your going to eat it straight away but you can still buy it and eat it later on.......

sorry i digress anyway picture below is the side view of the above picture all the flies on the page are around 6 to 7 inchs


the kc sarge sarge im wounded get the medics bleeding baitfish



just a slight change of colour but the same principal as the rest im really looking forward to getting these into a drain full of predators and i will do a full report on them when i get back from a 4 day trip i got planned but ive got a real good feeling about them..........



other business

check out Richard over at http://pikeflies.blogspot.com who has a really fantastic bit of writing on eyes for flies ...myself i was on the fence on this one for a long time whether eyes mattered or not and it wasn't till i spoke to a few anglers that i realised the eyes do actually catch bigger fish than the non eyed variety of flies but I'm not a scientist as to tell you why i can only go on experience well i mean if flies with no eyes caught more fish then id have boxes full of them , but as it happens i don't so that says something i suppose ....i suppose the most scientific way to prove it would be to put to identical flies on your leader with one on a dropper and one with no eyes and see how many you catch on what fly in the season . but you know what small jacks are like they will hit anything that moves where as the bigger fish seem to be more selective


anyway till the tuesday tie off i bid you fair well

mcfluffchucker
(a cave in scotland)

Sunday 24 January 2010

been tying up the ken capsey designed kc fly yesterday , after he showed me i thought what a great looking fly and can be done in pretty much any size you like from tiny bait fish to massive musky munchers the principle is the same with these , so i set about tying a few up in colours i like and that work for me and that I'm confident in using , I've got a trip coming up in the next couple off weeks so I'm going to be giving these a good kicking chasing pike ....

now you may look down at the pictures and think they are all the same tie but they are all slightly different with all using a slightly different materials , flash or eyes



the great thing about these flies is that you have a body section underneath all the material made from e-z braid tubing which is very rigid and stiff and if you so wished you could slide a rattle into it as well , this is what gives the great bait fish profile to the fly
sakuma 503 bait holder hook
all the flies are around about 5 to 6 inch's long and my preferred hook for these lengths is the above sakuma 503 bait holder hook ,this hook is fantastic for flies this size it a slightly offset hook which i think gives it a Little bit of an edge for hooking they also have a fairly large hook eye which also allows for better movement of the fly in the water , it does have a couple of barbs on the hook shank but these are easily crushed with a small pair of long nose pliers without any negative effects on the hook strength . and they are cheap as well here is the link if you want to have a look http://www.sakuma.co.uk/p/301/503-bait-holder-hooks take a look around as they do some really great hooks





a short section of e-z body braid is fitted over the head as a base for the eyes and epoxied in , i tried several types of Mylar tubing for this but found the best was either e-z body or waspi flexi wrap for me the e.z braid just came out better , you can whip the braid on if you want i know ken does this but i prefer to melt the end very gently with a lighter and mould to shape with my fingers , once the epoxy is on it goes bomb proof
a fly for all species


i think the fly above and below would pretty much be a fly for all species both salt and freshwater and both big or small i think this would pretty much catch anything anywere


i wet ted a couple this morning to see what kind of shape they had in the water and was amazed at how bait fishy they looked and how they shimmer in the water I'm pretty sure these will catch fish , and i think they will be one of those flies will catch multiple species of fish weather in the world you are .

THE NEXT PHASE
OK so I've played around with 6 inch flies now this week I'm going to ramp it up big style on Monday I'm planing to some 9 inch versions on orvis pike and musky hooks followed by truly monster 11 inch versions of the kc that I'm looking forward to doing , that's going to be a blast man ......
so see you in a flurry of feathers tomorrow folks
mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland not giving a flying toss what other people think)

Friday 22 January 2010

weekends just around the corner

me being me I'm never afraid to voice my opinions on stuff if something is a pile of waste outta cows backside then ill say so , so this brings me to the world of all things fly tying now Richard the guy who does the most amazing 3d eyes at unbelievable prices (his eyes are in the side menu) has launched himself into blog world and i must say I'm delighted at the thought , you see Richard loves great quality product but like me not the price tag that sometimes comes with it . so what he does is sources great products and sells them at a fraction of what you'd pay for the same thing else where .
so he now has a blog you can find it here http://pikeflies.blogspot.com i really advise adding him to you follow list as knowing Richard he will come up with some right good tying stuff at great prices and hes also UK based which is great , i have used him for eyes and his service is really second to none ........



ken capsey comes up with a killer fly



ken showed me this last night and to say i was impressed is an understatement what a great looking fly I'm going to tie a few of these up for an up coming trip as i think they will really do the business check kens blog for a few more patterns of this fly ...feckin awesome dude ill post my copy's over the weekend if i have time

A HAIRCUT SIR


for no other reason other than just for the hell of i decided yesterday to make a massive bullhead fly , i do like these flys the action is superb in case you ain't seen it in action here's a short video of it in action the pic above is at the end of the tying process and ready to be trimmed



the finished product



fly tying fever



really had it on me yesterday just wanted to tie massive flies so here's another monster i came up with all natural materials enjoy

so only a short post today as I'm on a split shift at work so i had better get my ass out the door , actually i think i may have time to tie just one of those ken capsey jobs before i go

tight lines







Thursday 21 January 2010

incredulous foam heads

sometimes you'll just be sitting there and from nowhere you will have a wave of ideas pop into your head I've tried to work out where these ideas come from i mean is it your watching TV and you subconsciously see a colour in the TV show and the mind logs it as a colour that will make a great pike fly or is it complete random boredom that has your flie tiers mind work in the background like some kind of super computer churning ideas round then something clicks into place and pops to the front of your mind and you have to go try it before you lose the idea ....well who knows but ill tell you my mind works like that every second of the day i go to bed thinking flies i wake up thinking flies and it was like that yesterday .......



i just had the urge to make big foam heads i mean big i wanted something that was going to slow sink have tons of fish appeal and look like it was ready to kick the bucket .

so when making these big foam heads you have to think about what your doing here as the foam is naturally highly buoyant so you start at that point foam floats so what you have to do is add some weight , of course the first think your going to add is the hook , and by choosing the hook carefully you'll be able to get the first bit of the puzzle the heavier the hook the faster the sink rate , materials are also important to but not as much as getting the head weight correct this i do by applying epoxy around the head.

the fly above has got a very heavy head the sink rate will come in at around 1 ft every five seconds this is done by combing heavy hook , epoxy , and the use of a glue gun to stick the foam together . with combining the whiting feathers ultra hair and flashabou for the body this give a great looking fly also on the drop which of course pike will also hit on the way down .

you can of course short strip these flies back as they sink the use of the conical eyes will make this fly also act like a big glide bait darting from side to side a great searching fly



the fly above will sink more slowly as there is no epoxy head on this one although the weight is added via a glue gun to stick the foam together so it will sink more slowly and have a lesser glide bait action the body is a mix of goat hair and Icelandic sheep with a little flash in the tail using this material will give you more of a flutter as you pause the fly on the strip



rainbow trout (above) here I've mixed in ep fibre and pink ultra hair and purple flash to form the body the head is formed from purple ultra foam but what I've done here is to dab on some epoxy on the sides and sprinkled silver glitter on and left to dry before coating the rest of the head with epoxy a simple and cheap way to give a different look .



perch (above) so whenever I'm tying flies i always have to do at least one perch pattern , the humble perch in the UK is on the pikes menu and usually always a great pattern to try , I've mixed things up a bit with the above said perch the under body is made from yak hair the back is made from sf fibre the red gill flash is made from slinky fibre and of course the copper flashabou i like to experiment when I'm tying sometimes and obviously different materials act in different ways in the water so mixing them up will give the fish something they haven't seen before and may be the trigger to a strike



again the fly above has been made using a mix of materials the belly is white ep fibre the orange in the fly is Icelandic sheep hair and the back is sf fibre , the ultra foam head is silver but I've added green glitter on the top as a contrast to the silver and to mimic the 2 tone head of a bait fish , a thin layer of epoxy on the head means the sink rate will be around 2ft per 1 second another great searching pattern ...

these flys are really great to fish although the 5 flies above took most of the day to make due to the fact that you have to leave the glitter to cure on the epoxy , i could if i wanted to go out and buy the new quick cure epoxys that are on the market but I'm a creature of habit i get a great satisfaction out off watching the flies go round on the dryer and the thought of a job well done when they are finished .

see ya all tomorrow and if you have a web cam remember watch what your doing with the cat before you turn it on to speak to your buddy ........?

tight lines from the cave
mcfluffchucker

Tuesday 19 January 2010

the tuesday tie off

nice to be back at the vice again and just in time for the Tuesday tie off with ken over at pike adventures. kens choice this week and his choice was the flash tail whistler by dan blanton and pretty much in most predator fly anglers boxes since it was shown to great effect in the DVD lair of the water wolf .

i think this is one of those flies that you don't really need to tinker about with to much , the only thing you really need to do is play around with colours and materials and see what you come up with .



hook-6/o long shanked Aberdeen
tail- white ultra hair
flash- pearl flashbou
body-pink / white marabou
eyes- bead chain
thread- clear mono


hook-6/0 orvis pike / musky hook
tail- copper flashbou
flash-as above
body-chartreuse bucktail / orange / chartreuse marabou / barred saddle hackle
eyes- bead chain
thread - clear mono


hook-6/0 orvis pike / musky hook
tail- silver flashbou
flash-as above
body-yellow bucktail / orange / chartreuse marabou / barred saddle hackle
eyes- bead chain
thread - clear mono


this one is tied a bit more sparsley

hook-5/0 long shank
tail-white ultra hair / white saddle hackle
flash-pearl flashbou
body-red saddle hackle
eyes-bead chain
thread - red 6/0 uni thread


this one is tied a bit more sparsely

hook-5/0 long shank
tail-chartreuse ultra hair / chartreuse saddle hackle
flash-green crystal flash
body-orange / chartreuse saddle hackle
eyes-bead chain
thread - orange 6/0 uni thread



this one is tied a bit more sparsely

hook-5/0 long shank
tail-chartreuse ultra hair / chartreuse saddle hackle
flash-green crystal flash
body-orange / chartreuse saddle hackle
eyes-bead chain
thread - orange 6/0 uni thread






pretty much all the flies are 5 or 6 inch's long and tied on 5/0 long shanked hooks the larger more bulky flies are tied on 6/0 orvis pike / musky hooks

so if you get on over to kens site you ll see what he came up with for this weeks tie off here's the link

http://pikeadventures.blogspot.com/

tight lines and hairy flies till next time

mcfluffchucker
(a cave in scotland)

Sunday 17 January 2010

busy week and little time

sometimes events just take over and you find yourself with pretty much no time on your hands we have all been there and done it how many times have you woken up in the morning looked outside and thought what a great day to be out with the rod chucking flies at your chosen species , throwing a popper against the Lilly pads with the hope of a big largemouth sucking it under with a crash , or casting a big fly out to were the water gets murky as it slides off into the deep and you damm well know there is a big old pike waiting to shovel that fly down , or maybe the tide is just right the light levels are perfect and you going to nail dozens of stripped bass in the surf .

then reality crashes in and you got ten mins to get dressed get some breakfast and get to work , OK you could throw a sicky or phone the boss and say tearfully my grandma has passed away i wont be in today this works up to a certain point as one of my old bosses said to me once when i phoned in "dave how come you have lost 15 grandmas this year and they have all passed away when the weather has been great for fishing" at that point i thought id better start on the grandpas .......

so my week this far has been like that the pressures of work and home keeping me away from the vice and thick ice keeping me away from fishing but it could be worse , and at least i can still get on the net and read about and look at flies which brings me to the next point

fly flingers on facebook


facebook in case you didn't know is basically a networking site where you can catch up with old Friends keep in touch with family or like me get a great big dose of all things fluff through anglers all over the world and should you choose or if your on there already then check out myself and kens group for fly tying nutcases fly flingers pattern swap click the link below

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=85058032128

now the group is growing quite fast with 70 odd members and well over 500 fly patterns to look at for all species , pike , trout, salmon, bass , stripers you name it there will be a pattern on there somewhere for you so check it out and have some fun

days of old

one of the people below is a mad keen fly angler can you guess which one , this picture was taken way back in 1984 when my love of rock music fast wimin and beer took over my life for a bit only for a bit though .i was soon back fishing



so hopefully next week ill be back to normal and I'm looking forward to the Tuesday tie in already in fact in really just going scatty being away from the vice for so long , fly tying addictive yea i guess it is see ya Tuesday folks

mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)

Wednesday 13 January 2010

yak yak yak

yak hair is something Ive never really used before but ken over at pike adventures uses it as standard so i thought id better see what all the fuss is about so i took the plunge and bought a couple of packets to play with.

now my first thoughts with this was well its that bloody long i may as well jump in at the deep end and try a bullhead with it so below is the result, actually I'm quite impressed with the stuff it does tie really well and i was able to mix some flash in with the head as well so top marks there

the resulting bloody massive yak hair bullhead is tied on a 6/0 orvis pike and musky hook now i must say that although it looks quite good Ive still not tried it wet so that will be reported on later when the ice breaks



well after a bullhead there really was only one way to go and that was down the foam head road i do bloody love those foam heads (cheers ulf) and i really enjoy making them although it can take a while to do em again orvis 6/0 Pike and musky hook was used just found these really good for them and sub bugs .

basically Ive just combined the long yak hair with a buck tail collar to maximise the movement, the epoxy head will make this fly a very slow sinker which means it will be great for searching out all the water column again not tested but i feel confident and that's half the battle



so yak hair so far i like it and i know ken at pike adventures has done well with it so i reckon the next logical step is to sub bug it

stay tuned

mcfluffchucker

Tuesday 12 January 2010

crease it up tuesday tie off

tuesday tie off day and my choice this week and my choice is crease flies so here we go some pike sized creasers enjoy ...................











remember to go check out kens site to see what he came up with today...http://pikeadventures.blogspot.com

tight lines flingers