the eyes have it

online ordering

i do order a fair bit of stuff on line for tying and stuff both in the UK and the u.s.a so as i needed to order a few specific items i decided to google what i needed and order from the top of the google pile and see how they stood up -

the items i needed were nothing that would have to be especially ordered by the companys in question so they should be able to stick them in the next avalible post

first up i needed a specfic kind of hook and needed 100 of them so went with uk-hooks as this matched the search query and although you can get cheaper uk hooks does have a vast range and if you need more than one type of hook this is a great site

www.uk-hooks.com



ordered 3rd April

emailed about my order 10th April

arrived -11th April

to be fair on this it turns out that the payment went to the site owners other personnel account and not his business account therefore he wasn't aware of the payment , this is down to a payment site clitch and not the site itself they were very quick and very helpful and replied within 30 Min's with the problem sorted , great customer service top marks and id happily use them again

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www.pikeshack.com

i needed some magnum zonker strips so this time i went with simon over at pike shack , simon has a great little site for the pike fly fisher and i also have a link to him in the side bar of the blog so decided to order and see how the process went .

 i placed my order late in the evening on the 9th April and i had pretty much straight away a confirmation email of my order , next day i got the dispatch email. very efficient

ordered -9th april

arrived -11th april

stuff arrived very swifty and would happily use them again top marks

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needed a few sakuma manta extras and unfortunatly the main sakuma website dosnt use paypal so i googled it and it came back with this company ,so i checked it out and they had what i wanted so i placed the order

ordered - 9th April

arrived - hasn't arrived as off 11th April (still early days yet) 

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NEW PRODUCT TO PLAY WITH

so with Easter upon us or just past by the time i post this i had some new product to play with from from the chaps over at deercreek so although my workload at work was quite heavy i will still have time to have a quick play

i don't usually dive straight in and tie something up as soon as I've received a product , i like to maybe sit for a bit and think about the best possible use and applications for what i have in front of me and so it was with these eyes and to be honest I've come up with a few great ideas for these as they are perfect pike size these dumbbell crystal eyes are fantastic

http://www.deercreek.co.uk/3D-Crystal-gator-eyes.html



with these i started by thinking id make a standard bait fish pattern and the first thing i realised with using these after laying down the first bed of gliss and glint was that the completely eradicate the need to glue eyes on to the sides at the end of the process which if your doing a lot of flies is a major bonus



 the other thing i really love about these is that the gap in the middle is perfect for adding some weight in the form of lead wire or epoxy having that gap is also great for doing spun deerhair bait fish as you can get the hair right in there perfect





the first finished baitfish using the eyes oh hell yea like them i can see these being very popular , I'm thinking of also doing a dan blanton flash tail whistler type fly with these as well i think that will also work very well (the fly below id tied on a 6/0 gamakatsu)

the subbug application of the crystal dumbells

of course branched upon the use of these eyes for subbugs so here's how to do it , eye position is completely up to you but I've put them in after the first couple clumps of the spun deerhair , I've placed stalk the eyes are connected with as close as possible to the front of the last clump and tied in with a couple of turns of thread pretty much the same as applying dumbbells to clousers and the like

the front view after tying in , you could at this point add a lead wire if you wanted a bit of weight in between the eyes very easy to do.





place your bottom clump of deerhair in between the eyes and add a couple of loose turns of thread to hold it in place , then add in the top colour again between the eyes as you can see it fills the gap nicely just make sure you have a big enough clump to fill the gap

the gap filled , i usually add a little varnish or glue before i add the next piece because the subbugs are designed for pike and adding glue or varnish strengthens the thread and guards against teeth damage , it also means you get a longer fly life as well 



keep packing the deerhair in till you reach the hook eye you should have something that looks like the hairy unkempt beast below , your now ready for what i always find to be the best bit about subbugs which is bringing them to life with a bit off cutting and shaping

the head cut and shaped sub bug style the dumbbell crystal eyes fitting really tight and snug





the finished subbug in all her glory ready to fish , the body is made up from long bugger cape feathers , and bucktail and also has some orvis crystal flash built in , I'm really looking forward to fishing this one as it will ride on the surface darting back and forth left to right I'm sure its going to be a killer



as i was about to publish the above post i got a mail from nick over at deercreek showing a new product they have developed these are going to be on sale very soon and there will be a number of patterns including perch (below) wrasse and brown trout and go up to a fish busting pike and musky sized 32mm , i for one am very excited and cant wait to get my fishheadz , i will of course post as soon as they are available . in the meantime i give you the picture to drool at enjoy



greetings from the cave

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)