big step by step flash fly

BIG FLASH FLY STEP BY STEP

ok folks i had a recent request to do a photo step by step for a large flashy type fly for pike and no doubt muskies would be up for it as well if you tuning in from the states so as always happy to  oblige , for this fly you will need the following 

6/0 octopus hook 

magnum flashabou in silver

orange uv fritz  

clear mono tying thread 

uv finish (dont use bugbond it cures tacky) or varnish

1 - ministry of the bloody obvious , stick the hook in the vice 

2 - add a pinch of strong glue (i use zap a gap ) i wish they would do croc glue again that stuff was awesome 

3 - take your mono tying thread and wrap around the hook making sure you spread the glue as you wrap round , this give a strong tying base and you materials wont move on the hook when finished 

4 - take you flashabou and place along the hook at the point of the curve , leave enough material to fold a few inchs back over this will help profile the fly 

5 - take a length (around 2 inchs) of chenille and tie in in front of the flashabou 

6 - wrap around until you have a ball of chenille and tie down (the reason for this will be obvious in the next few steps)  

7 - now take a few strands of flashabou and place around 3 quarters of it facing away from the hook  

8 - repeat this on each side and top and bottom and add a couple of wraps of mono to hold in place 

9 - now take each piece from the top middle and sides one at a time and fold back and secure 

10 -  now you can see what the ball of chenille does it give the material something to lye on creating a profile when wet  

11 - take a few full strands of flashabou and tye in this will give you length on the back of the fly , also worth noting you can add any color of flashabou  at this point to create a different back color  

12 - now tie off and seal with a high quality uv (i still use deer creeks uv as quite simply it is the best out there and cures in a few seconds , unlike other brands which dry tacky )

13 - a few seconds blast and its cured 

14 - a fast perfectly bombproof head 

and there you have it a fast simple and very effective predator fly and worth having a few in your box 

below is a few examples of different ideas you can do to pimp em up

have fun 

greetings from the cave 

mcfluffchucker 

the best laid plans and all that

THE BEST LAID PLANS

so got some time to go fishing for an evening session at the loch of menteith (i refuse to call it the lake out of principle ) so the session was to be a 5 till 11pm job and to be honest i was quite excited to be out afloat chasing big greens , so boxes were changed and larger flies were loaded in i was as ready as i could be ..

so all i had to do was wait for graham the pervert to pick me up 

so graham the twink turns up in this summers must have look in fingerless hooded top which makes a change as he usually wares gloves all the time actually i once asked him why he always has gloves on and he mumbled something about leaving fingerprints and then refused to say anymore hmmmmm  

so anyway we hit the road and although we had checked the weather and it said windy it was a bit disheartening to see this sign (and it wasnt warning of grahams arse for a change)  , never been a fan of chucking monster flies around in high winds can be hazardous to health 

a few pics on the callander road on the way up, looking a bit grim 

blahhh welcome to Scotland in summer i mean jesus if your a tourist youd be as well going somewhere where its going to be hot in the summer well except the middle east i mean that can be really more hazardous to health than chucking 6/0 hooks around in high winds i mean you could actually loose you head  over there anyway 

we got to menteith and stood and looked at the water and deliberated with the great pudgy pervert and we walked back to the car park to find dynamo daz and nae facefook but got one now nicky 

we found them and had a chat , they were still going out but having walked back to the water it was actually blowing worse and to be honest myself and captain buttplug have done our fairshare of being in boats on lumpy waters and i just dont enjoy that anymore so it was looking kinda like it wasn't going to happen 

so by this time it really looked like it wasnt going to happen 

although we spotted an ewok trout fisher rude little fecker as well he dropped his bottle of irn brew and graham the dom said "excuse me mate you dropped your drink" the feckin little shite totally ignored him what an ignorant douche bag 

so i took a few shots of the boats coming in to the harbor , i say harbor loosely its actually a beach i mean theve done a great job upgrading the building and cafe area for the tourists but really can they not have some kind of floating dock not that hard to do really or maybe thats in there plans , hope its bloody soon though.  

 so back up plan 

we headed back into the car park to speak with the mongs and tell them the plans , they were still setting up there gear and to be honest these 2 are bonkers and would go out no matter what 

daz had 2 set ups , nice flies fella and he had one of the shakespear agility fly rods , now got to say these rods are amazing value for money and cast like a dream great rods for the price unless of course your a tackle tart and prefer big name overpriced stuff because you think it makes you a better angler pfffft 

nicky just had the one rod with a large awesome looking streamer on it , i actually felt for nicky nae balls tonight because it was quite lumpy out there and hes just had an operation (although i cant say what) id imagine it would be quite painfull sitting down on a hard boat seat bouncing up and down "ouch"

pastures less windy we were bound , actually we were heading to another venue and after the quick ok from the owner we headed up there 

gotta love this view "stirling castle" Stirling Castle, a Scots royal fortress, occupied by the English, was under siege by the Scottish army. The English king,Edward II, assembled a formidable force to relieve it. This attempt failed, and his army was defeated in a pitched battle by a smaller army commanded by the King of Scots, Robert the Bruce. yup we sent them home to think again 

still quite a haunting and imposing view , so we settled down to the hour or so journey to the next venue  and i listened to graham moan on about the price of kebabs these days and how the price of hookers has gone up to unsustainable levels and we also had a fascinating conversation about quantum physics  and the journey seemed to zoom by , always great company with kojaks stunt double 

so we arrived at the gate of the next venue and the wind although still blowing was looking favorable as we would be sheltered from the worst of it and the boat fishing would be quite comfortable and best of all i knew we would catch fish here so not a total disaster .

well that was until i couldnt get the combo lock to work i mean i struggled for 15 mins and couldnt get the bloody thing open , so with heavy heart we both decided it was a sign from the fish gods that we should in fact be at home with our loved ones , well in grahams case totally destroying his wifes  pampering session to herself you know bath and nails and a rom com hahahahahahahaha   

so that was that then oh well least we tried , i spoke with daz the heartbreaker and him and nicky na balls said that although it was quite lumpy to start with they did get some good calm drifts and daz had one small jack to the next and quite a few follows from larger fish but you know you have to take the rough with the smooth and well shit happens but gotta say cheers to graham for a great laugh as always 

big and sparkly

a couple of big flies that i did for menteith using magnum flashbou 

ive done a step by step for these flies which ill upload next week these are really easy to make and highly effective 

and best of all they are ultra light and highly mobile 

was digging around in the boxes of doom and found a few bits of material that were crying out to be used 

this fly is made up of some future fly materials that i had been given as samples quite impressed with it there site is at https://futurefly.dk where you should be able to find local stockists in your country 

i looked at the fly and thought you know i could pimp it a bit so turned it into a perch pattern , fairly impressed with the results and again massive thanks to nick the greek at deer creek for providing the dogs bollocks eyes click the link in the side menu for the full range 

and with that i must go prepare for my week at work although i think im meeting up with graham the twinkle fairy for some mackerel fishing later in the week so stay tuned 

later folks 

mcfluffchucker 

(being a pilot in a cave in scotland)

summer time and the living is wet

WORK WORK WORK AND A BIT OF TYING AND FISHING 

but first of all happy 4th of july to all my friends across the ocean and of course my bro ken and his wife naomi have a cracker  , yea ok it was a couple of days ago but shit happens and i had to work . so im raisng a glass to all you turkey stuffers just now.

well what a couple of months its been i managed to lose my twitter sign in details or it got hacked , im presuming i just forgot the passwords as nothing been posted on it from on my facebook account but for the life of me i cant remember it quite infuriating hopefully it will turn up on a bit of paper or it will spring into my head at some point  

so i also moved house as well which can also be quite stressful along with pressures of work its been a busy few months  with not a lot of time for fishing or fly tying to be honest and all the orders i had to go from the last address had to be sent before i moved  and my tying gear packed away for the move .

below is where i now live with my lovely girlfriend cant really complain about the views 

DATE WITH THE WALKING DEAD , AND SPECIAL NEEDS LURE FISHERS

so with being nice and settled i was itching to get fishing so dug the box of doom out and tried to sort some flies out no easy task , as i was taking the boat box with me and thats thousands of bloody flies , last time i was out i took my day bag which is basically a scaled down version of my boat box , unhooking gear , leaders , spare lines , spare reels and a couple of fly boxes still no easy feat getting that back in the big box and belive me i actually left a load at home 

so the wonderfull darren (bleed for me) picked me up at around 5.am and he had with him nicky who always has a bag of sweets for breakfast in the car up to the venue , well actually we were going to meet up with baldy man mountain graham , no pubic hair gary , brian the hands , and james the pike jugglar, and stripe the loner up at the asda car park in a nearby town , i swear we must look really dodgy all standing around the cars in camo fishing gear , either that or a bunch of weird doggers

so up to the venue in convoy and belive it a few wrong turns from daz the driver , i think he had his mind on the green, the funny thing was all the rest followed him oh how we laughed , anyway despite dazs awful navigating skills we got there and tackled up and headed out on to the water , i have a bit of a (slightly worrying) sore arm just now so daz offered to row .

the wind was a bit odd and was pushing us across different drifts and the surface flies were just not working , presuming the water was a bit to cold as i usually do really well on top waters here and despite being June i was still wearing long trousers and a bloody jacket absolutely ridiculous but daz was soon into a fish after we both changed to intermediate lines   

a quick change of fly and i was also off into a fish which i was fairly relived about cant have daz beating me 

not a monster but hey fish is a fish i love em all and the smaller ones give such a spirited fight on fly gear well on gear that dont let you down 

MY GREYS FLY REEL

this is my greys fly reel , its pretty much been my workhorse reel for topwater and big flys on floating lines for years well as you can see there seems to be a slight problem , yes thats right the feckin reel feel off from the reel seat , oh if thats not bad enough it fell off at the end of a cast and went straight over the side of the boat and if that wernt bad enough a bloody large snotrocket took my fly on the drop which promptly fell off ..................thanks greys now lets see what you customer service is like if reoports are to be believed they aint that great but ill try them this week   

after a while of doing nothing much in the bay i decided to head over to another favorite spot and it was a joy to see bloody loads of swallows darting around the water , trying to photograph them was a different matter though . we drifted around for a while but with not much going on we decided to head in for lunch and i would vacate the boat and give nicky nae facebook a chance on the boat with the fly ,  

and then it rained in fact it bloody poured down for the rest of the day and i hate fishing in the rain it seems to get down into every opening in your clothing and soak you from the inside out , what i want to know is where is the bloody summer :-/

this is graham and me, in the middle is james who caught his first pike on this trip well done, he now has a new pb  to beat and he may have done it a few casts later but the fish decided to escape as he got it to the side (mabey next times james) all in all as always a fantastic day with the freaks from lure fishing scotland group look forward to the next one 

OFF THE VICE 

still had time for a few flies though , been concentrating on bigger flies lately , these are actually for my own fly box (theres a first eh) again mixing it up a bit  by using synthetics and natural materials . 

hook - gamakatsu SL10

body - Steve Farrar flash blend (chartreuse)

back body Steve Farrar flash blend (olive) 

back - barred whiting farm 

eye - deer creek 8mm 

below youll see some variations on this pattern , the body materials are the same but ive hust mixed up the back materials and eyes

here ive added some really long black crystal flash changed the eye color and added a little red angel hair flash under the eye  

and hey presto niffty looking baitfish 

and above is a basic fly just using the farrah materials again produces stunning looking flies bloody expensive though and ive run out of gliss and glint plus in these colours so had to nip down to orvis and pick a couple of packs up .

again with the eyes i wont compromise on quality and for 3d eyes the only ones i recommend and fully endorse are deercreeks and there roachie eyes are simply the best out there you can purchase them here 

roach eyes

oh couldn't help but make up a big natural as always inspired my my brother ken capsey the green machine king of north america cheers brother 

so as it stands now i have an up coming trip to a rather nice trout water chasing big snotrockets and i believe my next blog (work permitting next week will be a step by step on a very simple but large pike fly for big fish) 

stay safe and greetings from the cave
(mcfluffchucker a cave in scotland)