has it really been that long since i did a post on the blog the 19Th of Sept for gods sake i mean i didn't realise it was that long , indeed time flies well in this case busy doing them , as is well documented i supply limited editions to a few websites and i had a load of flies to do for the chaps over at www.predatorbite.com so that has kept me busy for quite a while if you want to check out the fruits of my labour click the pick below
I've also been tying up some sparkly beasts for my up coming trip strange that the tin next to the flies says money bank because these flashbou flies really are that money in the bank flies , although they all look the same they are all very much different as some are weighted some have rattles but they all very much catch fish .
full bodied rattle flashabou fly
somebody on facebook mentioned the other day on the fact that id used chenille in one of my ties and i explained that i have a lot of uses for chenille from bull body's and heads on flies to using it to create an illusion of bulk in the water on softer materials like flashabou and ep , easy to do so take a look at how i do it to keep a great fish shape in the water
so after having tied in your tail section of materials tie in a rattle (these are from pike trek and are cheap as chips and a great loud rattle) the slight weight of the rattle also gives the fly some action , in the old days i would either glue the rattle on or tie and varnish it , well those days are long gone ........
by adding a very thin layer of deercreeks diamond hard UV resin
and adding the torch for just a few seconds you get a rock hard bond and let me tell you it is a solid bond and there's no way a pike will destroy the rattle no matter what , in fact the rattle may be the only thing left once all the materials have long gone
so with the UV cured only after a few seconds and completely tack free i then hollow tie some material in at the front of the rattle this covers the rattle and your now ready to add the chenille to form the body bulk , all you really need to do is form a small ball in front of your last piece of material you can do this with just a couple of inches of chenille
so now i take a section of the chosen head colour and hollow tie it in , at this point i tend to add a dot of clear varnish to secure the tie before pushing back
now its been pushed back you can see how it sits around the chenille ball and starts to give it that shape you want , this is also the shape it will stay in the water .
tie in another shorter head colour (in this case pink) and then a final shorter section ,whip finish and then either varnish or as i do now a small blob of diamond hard UV
and there you have it a great looking fly that keeps that all important shape in the water and still has that amazing movement that only a fly can have , when you look at something like this in your hand , you just know your going to catch fish on it
so that's my box sorted out for this weekends fishing trip and boy do i need to get out , the crazy thing is we are nearly into October and the weather is barmy really bloody hot , this time of year id expect to be putting that fleece jacket what i am in fact doing is digging out my shorts and preparing surface sub bugs crazy crazy crazy .. welcome to Scotland
so after having tied in your tail section of materials tie in a rattle (these are from pike trek and are cheap as chips and a great loud rattle) the slight weight of the rattle also gives the fly some action , in the old days i would either glue the rattle on or tie and varnish it , well those days are long gone ........
by adding a very thin layer of deercreeks diamond hard UV resinand adding the torch for just a few seconds you get a rock hard bond and let me tell you it is a solid bond and there's no way a pike will destroy the rattle no matter what , in fact the rattle may be the only thing left once all the materials have long gone
so with the UV cured only after a few seconds and completely tack free i then hollow tie some material in at the front of the rattle this covers the rattle and your now ready to add the chenille to form the body bulk , all you really need to do is form a small ball in front of your last piece of material you can do this with just a couple of inches of chenille
so now i take a section of the chosen head colour and hollow tie it in , at this point i tend to add a dot of clear varnish to secure the tie before pushing back
now its been pushed back you can see how it sits around the chenille ball and starts to give it that shape you want , this is also the shape it will stay in the water .
tie in another shorter head colour (in this case pink) and then a final shorter section ,whip finish and then either varnish or as i do now a small blob of diamond hard UV
and there you have it a great looking fly that keeps that all important shape in the water and still has that amazing movement that only a fly can have , when you look at something like this in your hand , you just know your going to catch fish on it
so that's my box sorted out for this weekends fishing trip and boy do i need to get out , the crazy thing is we are nearly into October and the weather is barmy really bloody hot , this time of year id expect to be putting that fleece jacket what i am in fact doing is digging out my shorts and preparing surface sub bugs crazy crazy crazy .. welcome to Scotland take care if your out
mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)
as i said above it is very easy to use the 15ml applicator bottle makes getting the right amount where you need it a very easy job (see above) without the pointless need for lots of different applicator caps and replacements are only £4.99 the bottle size is ideal for the desktop fly tier all in all a very nice user experience
after applying the diamond hard resin in between the eyes i then five it just a few second (3 to be exact) and the head is solid well im not surprised with the power of the light , all in all im very impressed with this and to honest i thought i wouldn't like using a torch but im now a convert , of course ill still use all my other epoxy products because i have uses for all of them . this like croc glue will be another that i will find myself using every day, wonderful product , my next plan is to cook up some UV resin sandeels for an up and coming trip i think this kit will do the job brilliantly .
i really enjoy tying with gliss and glint plus as you get some fantastic looking flies and the flies I've posted on the blog today are in fact only tied up with one colour and that's white (with the exception of the purple flash) I've used sharpie and pro markers on the fibers to create some great looking flies the fiber itself takes on the pen colour very nicely and doesn't lose colour in the water 
so instead of tying lots of different colour fibers into a fly just try tying in one colour i.e white and then go to town with the coloured pens quite amazing what you'll come up with and you don't need to be any kind of artist to do it it , its not that hard to add some stripes or spots give it a go .
so you can see just in the bottom right of this pcture that i had some scraps of spectrum fibre from 
being scrap material the lengths are sometimes a bit odd but this adds to the overall effect of the fly so on it goes to create the body and body length , I've used as i do in most of my ties a clear mono thread as once its varnished or epoxied it goes invisible , so I've tied the scrap lengths in right up to the hook eye
scrap material and tie it in facing forward of the hook eye , this will be tied in hollow tie style , again don't worry if the lengths or odd this wont matter a jot when the fly is wet as it will all stick to the body when wet and not look odd at all
coming together nicley
xt is add the back in , really whatever colour you have lying about or fancy the black spectrum flash above was around 5 inch's lone and all I've done is laid the spectrum on top so 3 inch's is running from the eye to the back of the fly and 2 inch's out the front so when you tie it back its gives you a nice back profile as you can see from the picture above
s case a blue gator eyes from 
and most of these means i haven't got time to sit and add pressure to eyes while the glue drys , so my solution to this is to use some plastic non spring pegs yup they have just the right amount of pressure to hold eyes in place and apply just enough pressure to keep the eyes in place while the glue drys and when your doing a few of the same pattern it really does work well , in this case i had batches of 5 flies to do of one pattern so i tie 5 flies without eyes then glue the 5 sets of eyes on and rack them as in the picture above ......
one of the many flies I've done over the last few days this is called the portmore ghost a fantastic slverywhite bait fish with an orange UV inner core a really tasty pike snack if you want to buy any of these flies head on over to 
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