end of the year post

ANOTHER YEAR DONE 

so that time of year when ill say to everyone "have a cool yule" and enjoy time with your family and loved ones or friends or whoever you celebrate with , i will be working a night shift on Christmas night  but thats part of my job  i have to do either that or new year so it was my turn to pull the Christmas night shift but on the plus side i can have a dinner with my mrs before i go .

but you know wherever you are in the world and you celebrate the festival id ask to maybe have a look around your neighbourhood for somebody who has no family and will be on there own and see if they would like a Christmas dinner dropping round , i mean we all cook way too much anyway , just do one good deed , you'll be making somebody's day  ive done it the last few years , takes a few mins of your day .......spread the love.

so ive had a really busy year on the fly front and not really done much else between work and tying flies , but it was nice to catch up with brother ken "pikepicker" over in vermont  and as usual when he video called he was on the toilet but i have no idea what the screen shot of our conversation shows , i dread to think .

so during our conversation we got to talking about bucktail , ken is the master of bucktails and makes some very cool flies , to be honest i struggle finding decent bucktail in the uk , i used to buy it from orvis in Edinburgh but there really isnt as much of a choice colour wise but it was prime northern bucktail which was awesome stuff but kinda not worth going there anymore since john left , the fly tying side is pretty awful and overpriced .

so i was telling ken about an experience i had buying veinyards (which can be sporadic length wise) but the next best thing , so i bout 4 whole tails from a company i have bought from before , and when they arrived i was actually dubious that they were in fact veinyards  as they were in a clear bag with a lazer jet printed label , so i asked if these were genuine bucktails and was told they were , but that was a bit of a white lie .

i contacted veinyards and sent pictures of the tails and packaging and what they told me was that they were actually seconds and not there top grade as is usual in the yellow package , these were bagged up and sold cheaply and should not have had there name on .

when presented with these facts the seller said just send them back , really just send them back , they just didnt give a toss really , i mean by all means sell them but dont pull the wool over our eyes by making out they are top grade .

i mean yea ok you can still use them but i only use the best materials for my flies i can get so i was really hacked off about this .

i urgently needed some good long fiber bucktail so again turned to online and found a store actually not far from me mabey an hour or so south that did it so i thought id give them a try and to be honest they were ok probably the same quality as hareline but i thought it was a tad expensive at £7:25( around $10:00 us) plus postage so not the cheapest but the service was good here is the link 

http://vflyfishing.com the same bucktails from casters fly shop in the states casters fly shop is £5.37 ($7.25) so a bit of a difference but by the time i was to add postage it would probably be the same if not more (dave at casters has said around £10:00 uk) so that would actually work out around the same as uk prices but superior tails if you can wait then worth it , unfortunately i need stuff within a few days if i get an order in and i havent got a colour  

but quite simply the american have far superior bucktail than us in   

so brother ken actually sources his own tails and superior lengths and having tied with them while i was over i can say they are really awesome tails so i may come home with a load next time im over lol

playing with dyckers 

ok so i had a delivery of my favourite go to fibre in the form of dyckers fiber  , again i know i go on a lot about this fibre but i know no longer use ep fiber at all and for these types of synthetics i on use dyckers (no im not sponsored i just love the stuff)  so when i get a delivery im really like a kid in a sweetshop 

at the moment im tying a lot of these in kinda one colour (with flash nixed in) the reason being is that these are what i call a uni fly because they can be used not only on a fly rod but also on lure gear , if using fixed spool  reels these can be flicked out a fair distance and also on light baitcasting gear they are great for canals and close work or used with cherabuska weights they are great for distance work and  can be worked very slow along the bottom , a great all-round fly 

another uni fly this time a classic white pattern with a pearl flash blended in  and a hard eye , these eyes are particularly for this fly when fishing fixed spools as there is just enough weight for a good flick , this is a firm favourite for canals   

the other thing with dyckers fibres is they take permanent markers very well  , the fly above started life as pure white , so let your imagination run riot , you dont need to have gone to art school to make great looking flies . 

another dyckers fibre fly this time in rainbow trout colours , to be honest all you really need is 3 colours for a basic one but if you want to be really fancy you can add green an purple as well but this is a staple colour that works well  

i love messing around with brown trout patterns , this coloration i go from a picture of a highland loch brown trout , but there are many variations with browns so just have fun and go with it , always worth looking at pictures of baitfish from your local to match the hatch so to speak .

a standard type baitfish tyed on a 4/0 nice pattern that will catch anywhere really in fresh or saltwater , the way this is trimmed gives a really nice small baitfish look and dosnt lose the profile when fished 

just last week i discovered some fantastic 3d hard eyes so managed to make a quick one in between orders , i have a load of different colours in these eyes so when i get time ill tye a load up , i particularly like some green and black ones i also received so looking forward to using them , watch this space so to speak   

a dodgy close up , sorry im no david bailey but you get the idea 

au natural 

i just love tying up flies in natural materials and i always think that natural flies have an advantage over synthetics in fishing (i may be wrong ) but the way they move in the water and how they profile when wet is completely different to synthetics you may beg to differ but hey i like tying them and fishing them.

i was lucky enough the other week to score a load of really nice icelandic sheephair from a seller actually in iceland , it was actually a really great price as well , i know traditionally icelandic sheep hair is used for salmon tube flies but in recent years pike tiers have taken it onboard for pike flies , the great thing about sheep hair is how it tapers .

it literally has a thick end and a thin end which if you dont thin out the thick end you get a really nice profile fly and actually looks great and mobile in the water , if you havent tried it yet then give it a go

again the only down side is usually price , ok if your tying for yourself but not great if your tying 10 at a time , but they look great and awesome to fish , although can be a little weighty when wet but not quite like chucking an old wet sock about . 

a basic roach pattern using icelandic sheep hair with the addition of a grizzled feather on each side , not sure why the fish like that but they do and in the past this has caught a fair few fish , great pattern  , yea i like natural flies 

above is not a natural but was just looking as colours in my materials box and these were actually sitting next to each other and i though hmmmmmm that looks cool so the end result is above , kinda like that .

trend setting

flies flies flies , you know theres so many pike fly patterns out there and theirs new patterns hitting the web seems like every week you see the next must have fly and company's getting there little Africans furiously tying them up to get them into shops .

its funny how the flavour of the week must have fly soon becomes relegated to the bottom of the fly box never to be seen again  

we had the bunny bug  then dan blantons flashtail whistler is one of those (famously nicked by a well know company without a nod to the original designer) everybody wanted it , then there was big clouser minnows , seaducers , leftys decivers , game changers and now we have great big flies with tails .

thing is these flies are probably the only flies youll ever need in a box and youll always catch fish on them but i really think we are over complicating our fly fishing for no other reason than to be seen with the latest must have , none of those flies will catch you more than other flies , the trick is to get a fly past a fish and if its not on , then annoy it enough to strike . 

but you know i have thousands of flies in my boxes but only ever really fish half a dozen patterns in various colours , but its the angler in us that actually makes us want to have an edge and give a pike something they haven't seen but hey i dont think thats going to change soon .

its quite funny but somebody somewhere is going to catch a hog on a bunny bug and will have anglers delving into there boxes to find the bunnys they bought in 1997 .

trends are trends though and its all good fun and i enjoy making them 

upcoming trends

as you know i tye a lot of flies and do a lot of bespoke orders and some folks like really big flies 12 inchs plus , ive worked hard on making massive flies as lightweight as possible . but some folks like small flies up to 4 or five inchs and do really well on them .

one trend i have seen is for flies without flash and the flies without flash catch just as much as sparkly flies but there is defiantly a move to more plain more movement flies  but you know everything has its place and ultimately if your confident in what your fishing then thats half the battle , ultimately get it past em   

delivery incoming

lots of new flies are arriving at http://www.1000vliegen.nl/ this week if the post behaves , so please if your in holland please go check em out and support local business , 

these flies will sell fast so make sure you get over there 

weighted head bunny bug these flies catch a ton of fish and are made with the finest zonker strips for maximum movement

my fastest selling fly for the second half of the year , the raspberry back baitfish is quite simply awesome , get em while you can 

jig flies are becoming popular especially with the lrf fishers so im currently working on a range that will be live on my website https://www.spanglefish.com/mcfluffchuckerflies/ in January , ive been asked quite a few times to do this so there will be a full range including lead head jigs of all sizes from small trout patterns right through to pike ,zander and musky patterns anticipating the end of January for this but ill let folks know via my social media platforms when there up and live 

big big big bigger

there is currently a trend for massive flies and again have been requested to do a range for the website , most of these flies are quite expensive due to being labour intensive and are tied to order but my price will be a lot cheaper than you can currently get them (shops in the states are selling these at £30:00 a fly) mine will be a lot cheaper but without scrimping on quality stay tuned , these things are are awesome , if you wish to pre order these please mail me with sizes and colours 

order out

another order heading to Ireland , these are doing really well over there with some great catches , i guess the proof is in the eating , just hope these get there before Christmas so he can get out for a few hours to work off the turkey

have a great one friends and ill see you all in january with lots of new tying videos  for my youtube channel and general snotrocket sexyness 

mcfluffchucker 

(a cave in scotland)