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)