life in the cave

LIFE IN THE CAVE 

so it continues , life in the cave yup tying tying tying and not much else but hey its what i do so not a massive long blog this time just heavy on pictures . ill mention again that most of my pictures of flies these days have my name on , now id like to say this isnt to big me up or show off (thats not me) its simply to stop the African scam fly tiers from stealing fly pictures as there own so the easiest way to make things difficult is to put my name on them . 

( a massive thanks to rach and cez from the wonderful pike and slippers blog for my fantastic birthday present , the hornz will appear often )

some news ive been developing a new medium for the fly tier , a little something i have called skinz if you are linked in with me on facebook you'll have seen some bits about it but its a great link between epoxy and uv for heads and bodies and to be honest im quite excited about about it as its looking really great im hoping for an end of august launch for it and i will post on the blog and facebook when its ready for shipping , as with these things i have to get all the prep done first like tying videos and the like so please stay tuned , in the mean time here is some maggots a sandeel and a baitfish made with skinz .

so heres some of whats been coming out the cave in the last few weeks 

rattle and roll

tying in a rattle on a full flash fly 

and the finished fly rattle what rattle 

this trout ep pattern now has a new home down south 

this fly was one of the light bulb moments i sometimes have , i found in a box tucked away at the back of the cave , you know we all have those boxes were we throw stuff and think "im not sure what im going to do with this so ill put it there until i think of something " well i kinda shot myself in the foot with this one as the uv activated glow in the dark glowworm sheets are no longer available  so im guessing whatever im going to make with these like the fly above will remain firmly in my own boxes ........deercreek people please start doing this stuff again , i have lots of ideas and not enough sheet left, bummer .

Baitfish Baitfish everywhere 

love tying these 6 inch baitfish so quick and so easy and yet produces an awesome fly which actually looks fantastic in the water i have a pile of these and never tire of making them fantastic all round pattern 

ice 9 baitfish 

ice 9 green over gold baitfish

EP big baitfish with luminous eye and skinz head eyes avalible from deercreek fluro orange eyes

tarpon tied roach , these eyes are just fantastic and really lift a pattern eyes are available from deercreek volcano eyes

another bait fish pattern but this time made from hareline ripple ice ripple ice fiber

GOING BIG AGAIN 

 as you'll be aware if you follow my blog ive been mostly tying smaller patterns up to six/seven inchs , and ive kinda been neglecting the larger patterns , thing is the smaller patterns work fantastic and a lot of folks catch a lot of fish on them well it wasn't till the other day when i was sorting some boxes out that i realized that i had actually given most of the big ones away  and i do have a soft spot for making ridiculously massive flies , but i actually like to make them so you can actually fish them so although these monsters are 12 inchs plus you can comfortably fish them all day so i set to work stocking up the bigger flies , although the downside is i actually now need a new box for them 

so anyway below is a selection of big 12 inch plus flies the main body material is gliss n glint plus from deercreek 

classic fire tiger pattern with a little twist , the fire tiger is one of those patterns that just keep giving and a fly that will catch in pretty much any conditions and loads of species around the globe both fresh and saltwater 

made an angel hair head on this to give it that extra bit of extra turn up to 11 factor 

another monster this one i pretty much had no idea what i was making , i put the hook in the vice and got out some white fiber and just went from there , i literally had no idea what it was going to look like or if the colors would actually work even down to eye color so ok it worked out fine , sometimes the only limits to what we tye is set by our own imagination limits , 

more big stuff will be appearing  soon as i was getting low on materials and was waiting for some stuff to arrive which hasn't so ive tried a new supplier so lets see how that turns out , i have bought stuff from him on ebay before but i came across a random post on ebay and realized he has now launched a new website , so expect a full review next week , oh and more monster flees 

although not totally neglecting the the small stuff as ive been doing a few smaller patterns for chucking at the mackerel and they double as perch flies 

the 3 flies above were actually tied with scrap material , i had a few bits of flash left and being scottish i through nothing away so quite pleased with these , look kinda cool and will catch fish i think 

flies above are also down with leftover materials , well except for the eyes so dont chuck bits away theirs a use for everything and you can get some pretty cool flies out of scrap material , the flies above you could pretty much use either in the sea for mini species or in canals or drains for perch right down to chucking at rainbow trout in stocked fisheries "free the scrap"

and before i go i have had a couple of folks asking about how to use fiber that arrives crinkled and what to make with it , well to be honest you could tye it normally but i prefer to tye with straight fiber so here is a little video on how to fox this problem enjoy.

tight lines folks 

mcfluffchucker 

(a cave in scotland)