online trading

as i said in a previous post id ordered some new stuff for my perch and roach project and am quite excited about the prospect of having a bend in the 3 wgt from some feisty coarse fish , and my order arrived very swiftly from UK company tacklebargains who i have ordered a few things from over the years and always found them to be very good on price and excellent on delivery with stuff normally turning up within a few days of order even with the budget postage option .

so my stuff duly arrived and i was well happy with the results and it was everything i wanted and more , the one thing that wasn't in the order was a tackle bag on the invoice it said that it was coming via a separate courier so i sent a quick email to peter at the company and i received a reply within the hour explaining that they had just sold out of the product and it was being couriered direct from the stockists this i really didn't have a problem with and i know that with my previous dealings with the company that i wont have a problem and even if in the unlikely situation that i did it would be dealt with promptly that is what i call customer service which these days is sadly lacking in a lot of company's .............

an 11lb brown trout on the 3wgt caught by one of there customers i thing the perch and roach will not be a problem

so it brings me to the point about online company's if you need something and you don't have a particular online retailer you go to so what do you do , well i think about 99% of us would do a google search for the item needed which as you will have noticed will bring you up thousands of results , and if for example you want a spool of fluorocarbon you'll be faced literally with a mind boggling amount of hits , so you probably have a look at the first few pages of hits and i doubt many of you will get further than that , so your next step if your in the UK will be to look for a UK company so you ll click on a result that has .co.uk at the end of it and that's you done .

or so you think , because a lot of company's on the net don't actually carry all if any of the stock they advertise on there websites and you may be faced with thousands of items and every conceivable breaking strain of line well that's all well and good but if you order something its likely that it will have to travel first from the warehouse to the guys house/office when he orders it then it will have to be re packaged to go out to you , this sometimes can take a couple of weeks so you can see the problem right there , just because they are in the top search results doesn't mean they are the best what you need to do is send a mail to the company and ask if they have it in stock and how long from ordering will it take to get to you . if its more than a week then its more than likely that they don't have the item in stock do your homework and ask questions legit company's will happily answer any questions you may have

so this brings me nicely to tacklebargains.co.uk now i have over the years bought a few things from them (first about 8 years ago i think)and the one thing i like about them , besides the prices is the fact that they actually have physical stock at there warehouse so when you order somebody at the actual company goes and picks it of a shelf and sticks your name and addres on it before the courier comes to warehouse to pick your parcel up and deliver it to you .they also remove stuff they have haven't got so are constantly on the case and as i said there customer service is second to none ....... they have a vast array of fishing tackle far to much for me to list here so click the picture above and check one of the best in the UK and some of the cheapest prices ...... if you scrool down there sidebar menue youll find the fly fishing section but dont forget to check out there bulk hooks great for the fly tier

tight lines

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in scotland)

3wgts and flies

im blessed indeed with first rate bosses who don't mind me tying flies at work as with the job i do im very busy setting stuff up for the first hour or so then im pretty much around if clients need me so i can get away with tying no problem , so more often than not somebody coming into my office will be faced with this on my desk and i had lots of questions from people but now they just kinda look at me with a "poor boy" type of look and leave me to it .........:-)

so with my impending perch trip coming up , and the forecast is for rain at the end of the week although its like the caribbean just now in Scotland , and before you all head over here or up here let me tell you its only like this once every 2000 years in Scotland it will be back to snow tomorrow ho hum welcome to gods country , but the bonus is that if the weather is a bit off then it will keep the numpties off the water and ill be left to fish in peace and quite

so i needed to get some cone headed buggers done as more often than not the fish are done hugging the bottom on the shallow venue i fish for them in , brother ken had sent me some awesome streamer hooks a while ago and these were perfect for what i wanted to do , interesting at this point i can point out that as you can see the picture above is slightly blurred even on the macro setting on the camera always had that problem with close ups , but then after a year of owning the camera i accidentally push a button and it comes up with super macro setting , holy mother of god why oh why don't i ever read the instructions , the photo below is using the super macro setting ho hum ................:-)
so with my new David bailey type skills (famous photo dude if you didn't know) i took some more of the patterns im going to use if the weather holds up tomorrow the pics below are just smaller bait fish patterns

and a few more close ups (loving the super macro) im sure Jens over in Sweden will approve he likes his small perch flies

boxes of fishy goodness

fly fishing purists look away now

OK now this is a very grey area in the UK some fly fishing purists are going to cough and splatter into there cream teas down by the chalk stream , yes correct there's rubber things in the fly box . well i make no apology to those tweed encrusted toffs , you see i believe that fly fishing itself is all about the delivery method of your chosen lure / fly i say lure because a bait fish pattern isn't really a fly as such the fly part is the delivery part as i said i.e the rod and reel .

so when i go out fishing i like to sometimes catch fish and if i can maximise my catching them by having the odd grub or tiny rubber lure then so be it and the purists can go and drink earl grey in there lodges ....end off

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so i had my new 3wt arrive yesterday and i must say i am greatly impressed with it and the reel provided i didn't want to spend a massive amount on new gear but on the same token i didn't want crap and its always hard buying new rods over the net as you cant have a cast and see how it feels , i would have gone to a shop and bought one but unfortunately for me the only place i seemed to be able to get a 3 wgt was from orvis and i really didn't want pay 300 pounds for just a rod so the net it had to be and i got the rod reel and line for a great price of £69.06 here's the deal i got brook trout deal great price i thought , and i thought worth the chance , funnily enough i was speaking to Ernie the pffa sec and he said he had bout the very same rod for stream fishing and it was really good so looks like i struck lucky on this deal .

so as the weekend approaches i hope you all get out for a throw wherever you are in the world

tight lines

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

a small change in direction

I'm off chasing perch next week , not my number one predator to chase , simply because i find it very hard to catch the little buggers i sometimes catch them by mistake while pike fishing , my biggest on the fly to date is a fairly impressive 3 and a half pounds , although a great fish its somewhat tainted as i was chasing pike at the time so not really a targeted fish not that it matters but it does to me a bit ..........

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the venue I'm going to fish is a slow moving canal and if you've every fished a canal you ll know they can be bloody featureless places at the best of times so staying mobile is the key to the approach on these venues so fly fishing is perfect for it really although sometimes casting can be a bit tricky . so to the flies well fly tying Friend in Sweden Jens sttevoll has great success in fly fishing for perch and recently came up with some great flies so i borrowed the patterns and tweaked a little bit to suit my needs

bait fish

the first ties are based on the Jens baitfish quite a simple little fly but looks great comes in at around 3 inch's and tied on a 2/0 tiemco hook and a nice natural colour as well

same thing again except this one has a big eye compered to the body and a nice chartreuse body and the peacock herl tops it off nicely

bugs

bugs is pretty much all you can describe these as but Jens does fantastic on them so if it works for him then its got to be worth a try in my local

a slight variation on Jens pattern in that I've used a normal chenille on the head section and ive also used plastic eyes (these actually come from a blind its the bead you use to pull the blind up and down )

so with the box now filled with these creatures im fairly confident of getting a result but i may do a few more colours yet

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synthetic K-19

my synthetic version of the k-19 didn't quite work out what i had in my head and i ended up with a baitfish instead but i know what i did wrong and ill try again later but cool bait fish none the less

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

back to natural

BACK TO THE NATURAL SHIT

(ken capsey style)

i have been side tracked by the vast array of synthetic fibers out there and what can be done with them lately , and i was having a break in between having lunch and going to work and i was browsing pike adventures brother ken capsey pics on facebook and a particular fly of his took my eyes and i though that's sweet but what if i did this and did that to it mmmmmm may work out or it may turn out a pigs breakfast only way to do it is to try it so i did and this was the first result the K-19 in yellow and gold

i was quite impressed with how light this was for a big 7 inch fly so i tied a few up and posted them on my facebook page , well one of my friends asked if id got the idea from a Chinook salmon fly , well to be honest i didn't but i had a dick around the net and did find some great looking Chinook flies and could see how he would have thought that but just goes to show there's nothing new in fly tying just the stretch of our imaginations , and as I've said before improvisation is the key to some great patterns..........

THE K-19

(yellow / green and gold version)

i could have put eyes on them but i really didn't feel the need on these ones as i plan to use them as slow sinkers rather than deck bouncers , i am however going to do some deep water versions of the fly , well it would be rude not to really wouldn't it

THE K-19 pink
(pink and pink flashabou)

you may laugh at a big pink fly but trust me this colours has saved me from a few blanks on hard waters . OK other times it hasn't but you get the picture don't you, give something different a try may save the day and im sure there's a few waters that haven't seen a pink fly before especially in the UK .....dare to be different

K19 - silver baitfish

i also have a very cool idea for a synthetic version of this fly and ill hopefully get something down on an iron shortly i need to put a little thought into it first stay tuned

this is a very easy fly to make and i shall be doing a video tomorrow for it (time permitting) so thanks for the inspiration brother .

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mcfluffchuker

(a cave in Scotland)

the full shooting match

the whole shooting match

got to hand it to uncle Greg and the trek boys , they keep coming up with amazing stuff and fantastic offers for the predator fly fisher both in gear and tying materials i mean check this out

SPECIAL OFFER!

All three lines that you need in one pack. If you are tooling-up with 11 weight fly lines for pike fly fishing look no further.

3 fantastic quality weight-forward taper lines that will cast large pike flies with ease. One each of High-Floating, Slow Intermediate (1.5" per second), and Fast-Sink (equivalent to Di7 or 7" per second).

These are top-quality lines with a very supple finish, which is extremely pleasant in the hand and shoots through the rings like a rocket. Completely memory-free and as tangle-proof as you can get.

We use these lines ourselves here at Piketrek, now we wouldn't do that if they weren't any good, would we? Watch any of our Youtube videos if you'd like to see them work. Cast really well on a Pikesaber or any other rod that can handle them.

SPECIAL OFFER! THE FULL SHOOTING MATCH FOR £37.50!

sorry to say that's a bloody bargain if your in the market for a new lines well what you waiting for

AUTHANIC WIRE

now I'm hearing on the grapevines that some people are slagging this off , well you know it makes me laugh when those very same people haven't tried it , i mean how on earth can you slag a product off when you haven't even tried it , in my book this stuff is going from strength to strength with a lot of predator anglers changing over to it , I've also sent some of to the states to a couple of hardcore guys who i know will really dig it ...........

so in conclusion to these idiots i say until you've tried it shut the f**k up I'm sick to death of these know it all dicks who dispute only being in the games for 10 Min's they think they know ever thing there is to know , I'm sure you all know people like this and you probably even got one in your local club ..

click on the picture for a wire which will change the way you fish

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have fun

mcfluffchucker
(a cave in scotland)

free speech for the dumb and the scrap baitfish

we all have it you know those bits and pieces of scrap materials that fall on the floor or in your waste bag and let me tell you even after a few months that stuff mounts up , i mean have a look at the picture below and check out this Ziploc bag absolutely full of rubbish , bits of deer hair from trimming sub bugs bits of synthetic fibers fro right across the range i use bits of flash etc etc if you can tie flies with it then Ive probably got some in this Ziploc bag .

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OK I'm hearing you fellas I'm hearing you say whats he got a ziploc bag full of crud for should that have not gone in the bin or something ....... well actually being a Scot I'm bloody proud of getting value for money outta everything i use and just think about the amount of stuff in that bag , i mean if it was available commercially what would we pay for a bag that size , probably quite a bit for this special blend let me tell you and just look at it colourful shinny stuff that's gotta work for something right.......read on

birth of the mcfry


you got it i came up with a really great solution so that nothing is wasted at all and its really simple and you can make these little fry in loads of different sizes the ones featured are tied on 3/0 Aberdeen's i have done them on very small hooks also and also I've done them on 6/0 hooks and let me tell you they work big style


this fly above has got a plain old straight uniform body and a couple of eyes croc glued into place , the method of doing this is very simple and only takes a few steps in fact i may well do a vid for it , but it really is simple all you do is lay down a base layer of cotton thread and place a thin layer of glue on the shank , then tie in some black buck tail for the tail , now here's where you can go to town with your imagination because you could also use just sparkle flash , marabou or any other product you like for the tail , i just like to use a little buck tail
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then all you need to do is wax a section of your thread and take a pinch of your waste product from the bag bet tween you fore finger and thumb and roll it between them on the thread , it will then for a kinda weird looking colourfull rope that you just wrap around the hook shank and keep repeating the process until you reach the hook eye , if you want a thicker head or body just bring your thread all the way down to the back of the hook and add another layer in ......

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the eye is simply glued on at the end and allowed to dry , the fly below I've added an extra wrap of the dubbing to create the bigger head profile


so there you have it folks the mcfry OK it may have been done before but couldn't find anything similar to it , and let me tell you this fly in the smaller sizes is deadly in streams where there is a lot of very small bait fish , this fly will catch you fish wherever there is fish that eat smaller fish try it you'll be surprised .........

if you didn't quite get to grips with my wacky tying instructions and want a video step by step then please mail me at the normal address and if threes enough interest ill happily done one for the folks

remember free speech is a right even for the dumb that's why i say nothing

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

reinventing the wheel

was supposed to be away fishing today but it got cancelled last min due to my Buddy's car being in the garage hell these things happen so i thought id blog up what i got up to last night .
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reinventing the wheel

or in this case , dan blantons flashtail whistler OK not actually that the fly needs anything done to it i mean its a killer fly full stop and has caught hundreds if not thousands of species worldwide , so why tinker with it , well just because we can , as fly tiers we are always looking at new things to do with patterns and evolve existing patterns that's what I've done with this simply because i can

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I've changed the design slightly from Dans original and this one comes in around 6 inch's and I've replaced the small bead chain eyes with big plastic sea eyes (predators like eyes) although they look big and heavy they really are not being made of plastic , you can use epoxy or stick on eyes on them as they are recessed matter of personnel taste i think


a simple red and white basic pattern that will catch fish wherever you go

of course as is normal with me if i love a pattern ill end up making a few , not that i lose a massive amount of flies in fact i hardly lose any at all its just that i end up giving loads away

all the flies above are tied on sakuma mantas as i don't like to use an overly heavy hook on these flies as i think it makes it sink t0o fast and effects the action of the fly , just a personal observation , of course if you want to fish it on the bottom then a heavy hook is a better option

so with that its back to the bench i have some some new ideas i want to play with

peace

mcfluffchucker

thundercreeks and dawn raiders

so i had a day off work today and Stevie slight had sent me a text yesterday as if i fancied a morning session , well er ye bloody right i do as i text ed him back that night feet up in my office at work , OK then ill pick you up an 3.45 WHAT 3.45am oh bugger well at least there wouldn't be any traffic on the road on the way there so why not i can have an early night

dawn on the loch

eventually found a windy but not uncomfortable spot to fish so it was out with the flys and try again after a few cast i decided to get the fly alongside a patch of Lillie's bound to be a fish there somewhere i thought well i was right as the fly landed i did a couple of strips and bang a kamikaze rainbow trout attached itself to my fly , oh well at least a blanks off the cards even if it is the wrong species those rainbows can make a bit of a mess of tinsel flies

punk whistler accounted for the first pike of the day although a tad on the skinny side hey fish is a fish i guess

sometimes you just get it right eat fluff toothy a dam fine scrap this fish gave me as well look at the size off gob on it get a good sized trout down there so fly size isn't really a problem but i guess you got to wonder why they take small flies is it the fish version of a snack

this mornings session was cut short due to some incoming weather , by the time we got back to the dock the weather had turned nuts with big swells going down the loch so calling it early was the better idea

here comes the weather ......................run
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The original Thunder Creek was tied in 1963 by Keith Fulsher to imitate baitfish. The fly is tied in a variety of color schemes and sizes to imitate the baitfish of your local streams, lakes and oceans. The fly has been successfully fished for numerous species from Atlantic Salmon to Tarpon. to bass to perch and pretty much anything that will eat a minnow One of the keys of tying the Thunder Creek is that it should be tied sparsely according to the book but hell you dont get anywhere by not taking the odd chance or 2 ......

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so i decided to tie up a batch for some upcoming stuff and i know my boat partner will end up with a few i don't mind as the times I've fished with him his chat has been good and he does provide a good biscuit i wont name him as he shuns publicity although he has been known to grace the odd angling mag with pictures of fly caught zander

a minnow without a cause

this is loosely designed on the thundercreek as you can probably tell by the head although the actual tie itself is pretty much completely different , as I'm tying this for predators so i need a bit of meat on the bones on this fly ill maybe do a step by step later . the fly above is done with a rattle eye and a layer of 30 min z poxy , this allows me time to play with the eye position if i need too before it sets

again the same as the fly as above but a bit more bulky

team minnow

the flies are all tied on a sakuma manta 6/0 a fantastic lightweight and bloody sharp hook , the fact that its lightweight as well gives it a fine balance with the materials when in the water giving a slow but steady sink rate which means you can explore all the water depths with an intermediate line .......

below is the fly wet fantastic profile

of course this is just one colour combo and there's thousands you could do , these flies come in around 4 inch's long but you could do them a lot longer if you wanted just tie to suit you and your target species

happy hunting

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

onwards and upwards

so without a doubt its been a fecker of a few weeks and ive had a ton of rubbish dumped on me from various sources and heights so i had to take some time out to sort stuff out , you know life throws you a few curveballs sometimes and you just have to deal with so i did and am now getting on with it not a lot i can do about it so pretty pointless dweeling on it so therefore onwards and upwards .......

I've been an angler since i was a boy growing up on the tweed and in all that time I've had the odd staining nettle sting and ant bite but never really had anything serious while I've been fishing which is quite strange seeing some of the places i fish you'd have think i may have come away with more than a few Midge bites ........so imaging my surprise when i was at work and i discover this beauty on the back of my leg , i had had an itch when i went to my bed the night before so something must have got me ouch oh well as i said before onwards and upwards oh if threes any doctors reading this any ideas .

with all that's been going on my fly tying karma had taken a back seat but I'm now getting some ideas , here's a couple things i did just before my karma left , although I'm feeling that itch and have patterns going through my head so i think there may be some serious tying going down this week .

the superfloat baitfish

uncle Greg over at piketrek sent me some of there new and very cool superfloat fly foam now Ive only just scratched the surface with this stuff with a popper type fly (above) I'm thinking along the lines of using this for an off the bottom type Bobbie fly with this and all Ive a few ideas with using piketreks creature skin tubing , first results look very promising so stay tuned

bucktail baitfish
i also decided to do a few deceivers , again deceivers are a staple fly in a lot of fly anglers boxes and one of those flies that just keeps catch and catching , of course there is a million and one different colour combos you can use ,this is just an example and a colour i fancied and these take so little time to make you can fill a box in an afternoon

overtaking the world

my fly boxes all used to live in various fishing boxes but they seem to be spilling out all over the place just now , i should really get to grips and start sorting them out properly

inspiration for this week

i sometimes forget what i have in my materials boxes despite having a great idea were everything is sometimes i forget what i actually have in my boxes so when i was digging about a found some cool colours in sf fiber and some and some h20 , so ill add some white bodies to them and think ill have some cool bait fish patterns (see I'm getting my mojo back) ...............

so onwards and upwards stay tuned

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)