Lifes a pizza and rehoming subbugs

Lifes a pizza rehoming subbugs and other fishy stories

Got to hand it to the romans they came up with the perfect angling food in the form of pizza yup im done with cooking bacon on candles these days, if I need a good meal on a day’s fishing trip then this roman centurion meal on the march is just the job cold and just as good if not better than hot.

The roman soldiers used to cook these and fold these in half and stick em in there kit when they were hungry they could just pull it out have a bit and continue marching , so for the angler its perfect and to be honest even the most useless of cooks can make it the one below I did the other day and has a tomato sauce base, mature cheddar , mozzarella cheese, salami , chicken onions , red peppers and spinach all on a homemade base (you can but readymade bases from Tesco (no they don’t sponsor me) and you can add whatever toppings you want , cook for 15 to 20 mins allow to cool cut into squares (so you can eat between casts ) wrap in tin foil and job done a great and easy lunch snack …..

So as I write this it’s sat the 11th feb and I’m at work as you can tell by my foodie ramblings I’m not fishing or at my vice, but things are looking good for a trip this week as we don’t have the snow and ice that seems to be sweeping south of the border just now so fingers crossed for next week

Where did this lot come from

I was looking for my other day bag yesterday in case I can get out next week and while I was searching in the back of a long lost corner of the cupboard I came across this bag full of fly boxes so I’m going to need to shift through them and probably end up getting rid of some . as I have a pretty much standard kit now that I can just add to or takeaway so I really don’t need to carry this much, and to be honest if somebody else can use em at a bargain price then hell why not, funny thing is any money I make on them will go straight back into materials and the whole cycle starts again. So what’s in the boxes then……?

Well pretty much every idea I’ve ever had and put on a hook, so obviously there are a lot of boxes, I’ll get an idea and tie the fly up then if I think it’s a catcher I’ll do it a loads of different variation of the colours and then what normally happens is ill run out of space on my board so I’ll stick em all into boxes then they will end up in a dark corner of my fly cupboard ….to be found at a much later date when ive forgotten all about them .

Rehoming the chosen few

So ive been searching for a long time for a suitable option for storing and carrying subbugs, the problem we have with big deer hair head flies is that if you squash them up in a case they lose their head shape what you need is a box that has a lot of headroom inside so you don’t squash them now you could go and buy something like a cliffs beast (the mother ship box) but that retails at £40.00 uk so I really didn’t want to spend that much but as time went on I thought I may actually have to spend that to keep them in shape .
Enter the art bin ………..

I found this box quite by accident while I was off looking for something else in my local hobbycraft store and straight away this grabbed my attention, I picked it up turned it over looked at it from all angles opened it up and though you know this actually just looks like one of the big name boxes all , I did notice on the barcode sticker it actually said “flambeau” well off course I’m sure you all know that flambeau actually make tackle storage also and bloody good stuff it is as well , so unless there is some reason that you’re not allowed to use this as a fishing storage box I thought I’d buy one and see what I could do.

“External dimensions 41 x 26 x 10cm approx.”

So having made my purchase (and I didn’t get what I wanted in the first place) I jumped on a bus and headed for the local tackle shop (yes an actual tackle shop you can pick things up and stuff) where I had noticed they sold replacement foam for fly boxes I purchased a roll (along with a load of other stuff) and headed back to the cave.
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The foam was pretty easy to cut with a sharp blade all I did was cut to a rough length of the box and then peel the back of the foam and stick into the box then trim the foam to the contours of the bottom of the box and repeat with the other side and there you have it a bloody great subbug mother ship, of course you could use this for pretty much any kind of flies you like but for the purpose I wanted it for i.e. the subbugs it works perfect

So after having bought the box and the foam the total cost off the project was around £19.00 uk a massive half price saving if you put it against a bugger beast don’t get me wrong id love a cliffs but I just can’t afford the price tag so this is a great option and one that anybody could make ,
If you’re interested in looking at the boxes or dont have a hobby craft close to you, here is the link to look at one or purchase
http://direct.hobbycraft.co.uk/products-Flambeau-Artbin-Quick-View-Carry-Case-Large_245350.htm
if you’re interested in more info on subbugs then the link is below
http://www.spanglefish.com/subbuggin/
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Some vice action
im still hoping to get out for a chuck tomorrow weather permitting so ive started tying up a few pattern specifically for this venue , the water is usually quite coloured so the classic colours come into play

All that’s called for is a really skinny pattern ive tied this on a 4/0 sakuma manta I’m not sure why fish love this pattern so much bot they fairly do hammer them especially on this venue, with this fly ive add as you can see 2 small beads for the eyes, for some reason and I don’t know why fish seem to pick up on them, I have tied without and I do seem to catch less.
but I needed a slow sinking fly so dumbbell’s I didn’t really want on them , so I came up with idea of using the beads from one of those drawstring window blinds as the beads are plastic and really do the job perfect , all I’ve done is coated with a thin layer of tack free uv , the reason for this is just to give it some protection from teeth , a very easy fly to tie with only a few materials if you can’t work out what they please shout and I’ll let you know.

Using up some leftovers

Before the days of me using the wonderful gliss and glint plus from the mad professor at deercreek (cheers nick) I used a lot of sf flash and slink and flash , when deer creek introduced his gliss n glint plus I pretty much stopped using the others as I couldn’t see the need when there was a better product out there for a lot less cash (I am Scottish ) so yesterday when I was having a free tying day (just sit at the vice and tie ) I found some of this left so thought I may as well use it up for my canal box of flies

Again tied on sakuma manta 4/0 (they do 100 boxes now yahoooooo) and I came up with a pretty simple looking baitfish, interesting on this is that I’ve also gone old school and used trad googly eyes on this , I remember as well when that was pretty much all you could get in pike fly size , my how times have changed

A little hotcore orange built in just for something a bit different

A classic green and orange colour great for darker coloured water and off course the googly eyes also rattle which of course is a major bonus in predator attraction.
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It’s all in the shape
Ad swier the famous Dutch fluff meister has his own range of hooks out and here’s the thing they are a great looking hook, they have everything a pike fly tier could want great shape , superb shank length wide gape , but there is one thing that has always let these hooks down and that is the fact that they are barbless , when these first came out myself and a lot of other tiers were using them in fact one of my guys was buying flies off me very regular made on these one day he mailed me and asked me to tie all the flies id sent him again but on different hooks as he was losing fish all over the place on these hooks , no I was concerned about this so I looked into it myself and I also started losing fish on them all the fish had to do was shake its head and no matter of tight line would keep those fish on .

Further investigation found a lot of other people were also losing fish on the hooks and indeed a lot of anglers no longer use them myself included I really can’t see what the problem is but I know there is a problem there with fish throwing the hook, I really wish the company that make them “partridge” would do a barbed version of this hook I really do as not only would I use it as standard I’m sure others would also would it be a problem to also produce a barbed version I’m pretty sure you’d sell it ok.

I realise I’m opening a can of worms in the barb barbless hook debate but I’m firmly a barb hooked man as I believe barbless penetrate far too deep and do a lot of damage but if you’re a barbless hook guy then that’s completely your choice I have no problem that, if you know what we’re doing wrong please let us know you know im all for catch and fast release but not 30 seconds after hooking the fish …………..

In the meantime there is another choice
The mustad ultimate bass hook (saltwater bass for our American readers kinda like a striper) is the nearest I’ve found to a swier hook and as you can see its very close they go in size from 2/0 right through to 5/0 so size wise they are fine, they are also very strong Wire and bend: forged (In order to increase the strength of the bend [by approx. 25%], the wire of the bend is slightly compressed sidewise) and most important for me they have a barb but other than that the price is great, I picked up a pack of 4/0 for £1.50 uk in my local tackle shop and made by mustad you know you’re going to have a first class product.

A point of interest this week is that I had somebody unsubscribe from my youtube videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/mcfluffchucker
On further investigation it turns out that my tallywacker video means something completely different in Tunisia (something to do with playing with ones goat)A Tunisian man interviewed yesterday on why he unsubscribed

Happy hunting and tying folks
Mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)

p.s here’s a picture of world famous angler Charles jardine doing what he does best