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)