Thursday 29 September 2011

time flies

has it really been that long since i did a post on the blog the 19Th of Sept for gods sake i mean i didn't realise it was that long , indeed time flies well in this case busy doing them , as is well documented i supply limited editions to a few websites and i had a load of flies to do for the chaps over at www.predatorbite.com so that has kept me busy for quite a while if you want to check out the fruits of my labour click the pick below



I've also been tying up some sparkly beasts for my up coming trip strange that the tin next to the flies says money bank because these flashbou flies really are that money in the bank flies , although they all look the same they are all very much different as some are weighted some have rattles but they all very much catch fish .


full bodied rattle flashabou fly

somebody on facebook mentioned the other day on the fact that id used chenille in one of my ties and i explained that i have a lot of uses for chenille from bull body's and heads on flies to using it to create an illusion of bulk in the water on softer materials like flashabou and ep , easy to do so take a look at how i do it to keep a great fish shape in the water


so after having tied in your tail section of materials tie in a rattle (these are from pike trek and are cheap as chips and a great loud rattle) the slight weight of the rattle also gives the fly some action , in the old days i would either glue the rattle on or tie and varnish it , well those days are long gone ........


by adding a very thin layer of deercreeks diamond hard UV resin
and adding the torch for just a few seconds you get a rock hard bond and let me tell you it is a solid bond and there's no way a pike will destroy the rattle no matter what , in fact the rattle may be the only thing left once all the materials have long gone



so with the UV cured only after a few seconds and completely tack free i then hollow tie some material in at the front of the rattle this covers the rattle and your now ready to add the chenille to form the body bulk , all you really need to do is form a small ball in front of your last piece of material you can do this with just a couple of inches of chenille


so now i take a section of the chosen head colour and hollow tie it in , at this point i tend to add a dot of clear varnish to secure the tie before pushing back


now its been pushed back you can see how it sits around the chenille ball and starts to give it that shape you want , this is also the shape it will stay in the water .



tie in another shorter head colour (in this case pink) and then a final shorter section ,whip finish and then either varnish or as i do now a small blob of diamond hard UV


and there you have it a great looking fly that keeps that all important shape in the water and still has that amazing movement that only a fly can have , when you look at something like this in your hand , you just know your going to catch fish on it


so that's my box sorted out for this weekends fishing trip and boy do i need to get out , the crazy thing is we are nearly into October and the weather is barmy really bloody hot , this time of year id expect to be putting that fleece jacket what i am in fact doing is digging out my shorts and preparing surface sub bugs crazy crazy crazy .. welcome to Scotland


take care if your out

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

Monday 19 September 2011

life

ROCKS




ENJOY THE BUZZ

Friday 16 September 2011

gliss n glint plus and diamond hard uv

MERRY CHRISTMAS


well that's what i thought when i got a package through the door yesterday with a nice diamond hard UV resin kit from http://www.deercreek.co.uk/ now i use various epoxies and i indeed if you read my blog regularly you will know i also have a UV drying case that i can put multiple flies on so i was keen to try just one of these torch kits .......

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the one thing that really shocked me was when doing some research into the torch i found a UV torch that was exactly the same for a wallet breaking £47.00 pounds the guys at deercreek do there torch as a stand alone product for £19.99 and you can actually buy the whole kit from deercreek at £29.99 . im really shocked at difference in price on quite a few sites you cant buy a branded kit for any where near that money , so hats off to deercreek for not ripping people off and another reason why i support cottage industry , shame on the others



what i wanted to do was 2 things with the diamond cure , i wanted to A- see how it worked just for sticking eyes to flies and B - how it did a full UV head covering the eyes . the first thing i noticed with the torch when placing eyes on was how easy it was to do and a firm bond was easily achieved , the one disadvantage of uvs though is that you don't have the option to re adjust the eye position which you can do with 5 min epoxy but that's a small thing and if you get the position correct in the first place then it shouldn't even be a problem , of course you may wish to stick them down with something like croc glue first if doing a full head .......


i then tried to do a full head covering the eyes and giving it a solid lightweight head , the first thing i noticed was that how fast it cured 3.2 seconds with the ultrafire torch quite incredible and very easy to work with .


as i said above it is very easy to use the 15ml applicator bottle makes getting the right amount where you need it a very easy job (see above) without the pointless need for lots of different applicator caps and replacements are only £4.99 the bottle size is ideal for the desktop fly tier all in all a very nice user experience
after applying the diamond hard resin in between the eyes i then five it just a few second (3 to be exact) and the head is solid well im not surprised with the power of the light , all in all im very impressed with this and to honest i thought i wouldn't like using a torch but im now a convert , of course ill still use all my other epoxy products because i have uses for all of them . this like croc glue will be another that i will find myself using every day, wonderful product , my next plan is to cook up some UV resin sandeels for an up and coming trip i think this kit will do the job brilliantly .
breaking news
HOT NEWS, Internationally famed Irish A.P.G.I.A. leader, Lawrence Finney recently tried Diamond Hard after every other similar product & was "gob-struck" by just how good it is. This came after Lawrence had issues with a different UV resin.
All his buzzers he tied for a customer all stuck together.

On showing it to several other A.P.G.A.I. members, who were more than a bit sceptical. They ordered it on-sight.

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if you wish to see more or order the full kit (at that price you'd be daft not to) click on the picture below


(dont people be fooled into buying other overpriced uv kits this stuff is rock hard and tack free)


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flying the colours


i also got through some new colour of angelhair type flash in a lovely rainbow trout colour from deercreek this was just a sample pack and will be available through nick in a few weeks (ill blog when its available ) unfortunately i was only able to do a couple of flies with it as it was a only a sample , i really look forward to tying some more up when its available .


i really enjoy tying with gliss and glint plus as you get some fantastic looking flies and the flies I've posted on the blog today are in fact only tied up with one colour and that's white (with the exception of the purple flash) I've used sharpie and pro markers on the fibers to create some great looking flies the fiber itself takes on the pen colour very nicely and doesn't lose colour in the water


so instead of tying lots of different colour fibers into a fly just try tying in one colour i.e white and then go to town with the coloured pens quite amazing what you'll come up with and you don't need to be any kind of artist to do it it , its not that hard to add some stripes or spots give it a go .


gliss and glint plus isn't expensive just £2.69 for a generous hank and if you use it sparingly with another colour you can get half a dozen large pike flies out of it just remember with this material less is more


if you want to try gliss and glint plus you can get it from the link below


http://www.deercreek.co.uk/Deer-Creek-fly-tying-materials.html


if your out and about have a great weekend and remember support cottage business

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

Saturday 10 September 2011

life in the cave and freinds flies

so I've been busy with the naturals and been pretty much stuck in the cave tying up some patterns that friends use ,but by adding my own twist to them nothing drastic maybe just adding a new colour into the mix or a different eye colour you know the score , the cave below (that's only half of it by the way) is where i sit for many a happy hour relaxing creating patterns and generally turning my back on the strains of life


good freind and deercreek tying team member jens from Sweden chucked up one of his new perch flies on facebook the other day and i looked at the fly and thought what a great pattern , jens has had great success with the fly for his perch populations so i thought id tie some up in bigger sizes for pike as i thought it would do really good for them so i set to work.


so my first idea was to actually make a duel pattern that i could use for both pike and sea bass that i sometimes fish for and jens pattern ticked the boxes above is my first version using the new fluro eyes from piketrek quite impressed with the overall effect and look of the fly ,and i think it would catch fish whatever situation you find yourself in


and pretty much identical fly but used spectrum flash from piketrek instead of gold off the previous fly love the pattern so big thanks to jens for the inspiration buddy look forward to fishing it my recipe is below
hook - 6/0 sakuma manta / tail - whitting farm saddle hackle / flash - piketrek spectrum flash / body -piketrek spectrum twist / with a saddle hackle wound round the body / eyes - 8mm fluro eyes in green -


and for n o other reason than i opened a draw and found a lump of gold flashabou in one of my draws i decided to monster up a big pike fly again for no other reason than i could , this is actually quite a big bulky fly although its weight is minimal as you'd expect being made from flashabou , the trick with this to give it some nice bulk in the water is to tie in a small amount of chenille an inch below the hook eye , tie it in a ball and the next lot of material you tie in will give it some bulk to form the appearance of more bulk in the water , without having to resort to lots of material which ultimatley makes the fly heavier .....

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looking at the fly above i suspect it would do well on water with high bream content which pike would feed on but being copper and gold it may well also do well on waters with stocks of brown trout in


of course flashabou is a lovely material but the only downside is you can only get one fly out of a pack , but there is another option and that's going over to piketreks site and grabbing some of there superb spectrum flash now as you can see from the fly above you still get a great looking flash fly (this one is done in harmony angel) but the difference in price is that a hank of this stuff cost £2.50 and you can get 4 7 inch flies out of it , so its simply down to budget but both work just as well .

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ODE TO A REDNECK
my brother ken is getting some man time in just now so i wont speak to him till at least tomorrows night , but when i spoke to him the other day he was saying "dude you gotta start tying more naturals man " simply because all those years ago it was the very fluffy feather fly tying that got me and the VT crazy talking , so again with if you ask me ken being the master of the splayed fly id steal his idea and make half a dozen up , as to be honest im actually getting right into doing them and im also really looking forward to getting out and putting them through there paces , so once again thanks brother for setting me off down that path again and hope you dig my version of your fly and if it does half as well as yours do then ill be happy ....

so this week i may get out later in the week , we have some kind of monster wind heading over the Atlantic just now and its due to hit sometime tomorrow night on the west coast of Scotland (Glasgow's area) with 80 miles an hour winds and 27ft waves apparently so i for one wont be trying to get a line out on a remote hill loch so if you are going out well id say don't earn some brownie points and do some diy .


thanks once again for your attention and not resenting the fact that's 10 Min's of your life you wont get back because you read my drivel ..... although i really do appreciate the kind messages and emails


mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

Wednesday 7 September 2011

rods and flies

been so bloody busy yet again this week , have so many flies to do , writing to do and a particularly cool fishing trip to try and plan for both salt and fresh water on the same days 2 days running more about that after i do it but im very excited about it as the saltwater mark i couldn't get anybody interested in going as they said there was no fish there ahhhhhhhh how do you now you haven't fished it , i have and i caught fish there but only scratched the surface there , there a world full of armchair anglers who will happily fish your spot once you've done all the leg work , luckily Ive found somebody just as daft as me to do this so that's one to look forward to next month






my brother ken over at pike adventures is always going on at me to tie up flies with naturals as he says its what i do best , and to be fair i have let natural fibers slip a bit by the wayside for no other reason than that there's some much new and exciting stuff in synthetics out there , so i set to work on some killer nearly all natural flies , these are basically split tail flies that you may normally see on tarpon flies but ken has done so great stuff with these and i also have done not to bad on them so i just pike sized them and there ready to go



these flies are all made with premier materials and will shortly be available in premier kits from predatorbite.com watch this space and these will be strictly limited edition so you'll need to get in there fast watch this space .

i have also designed these flies so they will also be happy in saltwater so great for the occasional saltwater angler again although they are tied on saltwater proof hooks it always worth keeping you used flies separate from unused flies and wash em down with fresh water when you get home .....



4 PIECE PIKE FLY ROD



SPEC
Specifications (built for tropical saltwater fishing and immensely powerful in the butt)
9 foot length
4 sections
Full wells cork grip Alloy reel seat,
up locking.
Fighting butt.



9/10 wgt line
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this rod is a very nice bit of kit 4 piece which is easily better for traveling than 2 or 3 piece rods and I've never suffered from having a 4 piece , the thing i like about this rod is that it is very forgiving in its action and would be fantastic for a first time angler the line up dots make getting your rings lined up an easy job if your in a hurry the other thing strangely enough is the fact it also has a fly keeper ring which is always a bonus , im constantly amazed at the fact that you can pay 400 /500 / or even 600 quid for a fly rod and the thing dosnt come with a keeper ring .



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the rod is rated for a 9/10 wgt line although i think you could easily fish an 11 wgt on it although 10 wgt is amble for pike but its nice to have that option , the day i fished it i had a rather bracing wind in my face and i was pleasantly surprised when my Rio pike/musky line coupled with a big 9 inch deercreek gliss n glint baitfish cut through the wind no problem and got me a good line out , i managed to bully a couple of fish up around the 8/9lb mark and to be honest they didn't stand a chance on this rod , which is good as you want to get them in as fast as possible , i look forward to getting something a bit bigger on it to really put its through paces , i also look forward to getting out into the saltwater with it as i think it will perform brilliantly ...




retail on this rod is £165.00 including UK post and packing (overseas buyers just get in touch with them for a price) and to be honest that's a heck of a good price for a rod of this quality
if your interested in purchasing this snazzy bit of kit then mail Simon direct in the UK here




mailto:sales@kayakuk.com




Simon also does a very neat line in kayaks so if you fancy one contact him on the email above and he also does kayak courses for anglers check his site out at (click the pic)





so see ya all soon