a scottish breakfasts

A full Scottish breakfast might include: toast, beans, fried haggis, potato hash, eggs, back bacon, potato scones, fried mushrooms, grilled tomatoes,Lorne sausage,black pudding, oatcakes, kippers, lamb chop and a fried slice (fried bread to people south of Hadrian's wall) , although a breakfast with all of these ingredients might be a bit excessive and a lot of times is called a heart attack on a plate.

now don't get me wrong i don't eat this every day ( i don't honest) but it is a bloody tasty treat maybe once a month on a Sunday before i go to work as it will fill me up for the est of the day no surprise there ......

nearly a full Scottish (picture below is the diet version)


OK so by now your probably wondering what the feck i am going on about well rest assured Ive not given up my fluff addiction and changed it over to a cooking addiction , you what happened this morning was i had just got my breakfast kippers (below) out of the fridge when the phone rings .



its ken from pike adventures in America although it was breakfast time for me ken unfortunately couldn't sleep and it was 3.30 am for him well he asked what i was doing and i told him

" id just got my breakfast out the fridge "

"what ya having"

"kippers i answer"

silence

"what the feck is a kipper" asks ken

well to save a long phone call and it is kinda fish related i decided to do this on my blog so here we go this is what a kipper is .........

Kipper - fish (usually a herring) cured by splitting, salting, and drying or smoking. A breakfast food in Scotland, kippered herring is poached, grilled or baked.

my kippers being grilled this morning


if you haven't tasted these before well you really should they are very very very tasty with a lovely smoked flavour , i prefer mine grilled or poached in full fat milk beautifully for quickness i do just grill them you can actually by kippers in tins and to be quite honest they are so cheap i often buy a couple of cans to go out fishing with for lunch , and they are just as nice cold .

grilled for 15 Min's and ready to go

you'll notice that I've added a small blob of Heinz tomato sauce this is a great complement to the taste of the smoked herring , lovely golden brown smoked kippers ready to eat and i bloody enjoyed them

however there is a down side to eating kippers , you find yourself belching a lot and when you do all you can taste is kippers although this can be great for a laugh if your up wind from your boat partner although not good if your trying to score chicks .

i now no longer have kippers as a starter before my fried breakfast i have them instead of a fried breakfast

ready to go and i really enjoyed them totally melt in the mouth (ken will be eating them when he visits in July)


OK so that's kippers but there is a holy grail of smoked fish oh yes there is something far more tasty in fact I'm watering at the mouth just writing about it it is the famous arbroath smokie it is indeed the king of smoked fish .

unfortunately arbroath is on the train line when i head north to my favorite fly fishing loch in the north of of Scotland and indeed i have been know to get an earlier train so i can get of the train and buy some of these and get the next train from arbroath

why is this the king of smoked fish well read below.....

Only haddock can be used to produce an authentic 'Arbroath Smokie'. The fish are gutted at sea, washed and boxed ready for auction at the fish market. Once back in the fish house, they are headed and cleaned, or 'sounded'. They are then dry salted in tubs for a given period. This helps to draw excess moisture from the fish and toughens the skin in preparation for the smoking process. The length of salting time depends on the size of the fish and how fresh they are (amongst other factors). After salting, they are thoroughly washed off, then tied by the tail in "pairs" and hung on sticks.

The smokie pit is then prepared. A hole is dug in the ground, and a half whisky barrel is set into it. The base of the barrel is lined with slates to protect it, and a hardwood fire of beech and oak is lit inside.

The sticks of fish are then placed over the pit and the hessian cover allows the fire to breathe and maintain the required heat. The number of layers and dampening of the 'cloots' depends on the weather, and may be adjusted throughout the smoking to prevent the fish either smoking too quickly and burning, or smoking too slowly and drying out. The cooking time is usually a minimum of 30 - 40 minutes but only an experienced smokie maker knows exactly when they are ready. The resultant golden brown fish, eaten straight from the barrel is a truly mouth-watering experience that has to be tasted to be believed!....

here's the link to

Iain R. Spink's Original Smokies From Arbroath

OK so that's that and for those of you who have no interest at all in my breakfast habits here is a subbug tied on an 8/0 circle hook this morning




tight lines and full stomachs
Dave mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland

tuesday tie off

what you looking at



this week we decided on a Tuesday tie off was going to be a theme of spun deer hair , so we could tie pretty much anything we liked as long as it had some spun deer hair in it , so in decided due to this weeks challenge id have to make one of kens home made stacker's which actually are really rather bloody good, a rubber wine cork with a hole in it not pretty but does the job and even the dumbest redneck would be able to make it .......

stack n pack


so here is the result of the first try of the pack n stack a small subbug and actually it works really well , the bug itself is tied on a 4/0 sakuma manta orange and yellow buck tail body cream marabou feather collar and yellow and orange head topped of with conical eyes epoxyed in to give it that all important subbug action .........................

5 inch subbug


so next up i decided to muck around with crawdads no if you in the UK you'd think why do them they wont catch anything in the UK well actually they will i mean we have our own be it diminishing population of native crayfish there is of course the American signal crayfish which seems to be marching through our waterways just now and the fish are getting pretty fat on them so below was my first attempt at one with deer hair as a body i usually make them completely different than this although i think this looks more like a squid myself but its only the first attempt ........



close up of the above , just under and back behind the mono eyes is some heavy dumbbell eyes so this will hop and swim as its stripped and paused ....



OK so after the first one i had the basics of what i was doing so it kinda fell into place so really the only option really was to tie these with zonker strip and hey it looks kinda cool i think it will fish quite well and yea perch , pike and other predators will take these if there in the water they will probably be eating them ........



again the dumbbell eyes are hidden just behind the mono eye stems on the underside of the hook again this will make this fish in a hop swim and sink motion with the back body riding up mmmmm tempting .....



so just to finish up the tie off with something completely different , i saw this pattern in an American fly fishing magazine its made for steel heads and a most bizarre looking creature it is to well as we all now the Americans are way ahead of us when it comes to fly fishing i mean fly fishing for carp is the norm over there nobody bats an eyelid but could you imagine if i did that in the UK id be laughed of the water but i will be doing it later in the year ...

so anyway i saw this and thought what the hell I'm going to do one anyway and you know id fish it as well i reckon chub would kill for this so i will try it at some point it comes in at 3.5 inch's long what the hell the fish think it id is beyond me but hay ill try anything one (well almost anything)




so yet again we have the Tuesday tie of with ken capsey you'll find his ties here be sure to check em out

http://pikeadventures.blogspot.com/

so back on wed with another whole heap of trouble

tight lines
mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)

back at work

so back at work today and i have 5 spare Min's so time for an update of the bogus , i was in orvis on my way to work yesterday (sorry just happened to fall in the door) and i was shown a new product that they are doing which looks like an all in one leader now i was only shown a photo of it but its seems to be a 7 ft long leader with an inbuilt trace in the core which will be a great product for the newcomer to the sport a product that you ca just attach to your line and go fish .

they have ordered some in to the shop so once they are in ill pick one up and give you lowdown , i do remember once getting one of the airflo ones that was a tapperd leader with a titanium trace attached and i remember writing a review of that and being quite impressed so i look forward to seeing the orvis version ...stay tuned

one of my flies cartooned just for the hell of it but looks cool ad may become the new banner for the pike and predator flies site what do ya think



so this morning at 7 am saw me at the vice mucking around with materials and below is the result (sorry tony ill send the golf clubs down)

I've mixed up ultra hair and slink n flash for this one the belly being the ultra hair and the back the slink and flash it looks like a great bulky fly but Ive hardly used any material at all on it probably 4 bits of slink n flash and maybe 6 bits of ultra hair oh and a tiny bit of yellow DNA fibre the hook is a 6/0 gamakatsu

I've used a googly eye on this one with a tiny amount of epoxy to seal the head and protect the eye

slightly different smaller version of the above

tied using the same method but tied on a gamakatsu 4/0 this time and slightly thinner in profile






a small 7mm conical eye gives this the weight needed for the action and only the slightest bit of epoxy to stick the eyes and seal the head , ill be doing a step by step for this for the website this so stay tuned

well look forward to another fun filed week and I'm maybe going to get some fishing in as well so a right bonus

tight lines flingers
mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)

a day off today

I've been working my ass of the last couple of days so it was pretty cool to get a day of today and get on the vice , although once i had done my pre Tye exercise (hell its good enough for athletes to warm up) which consists of a large coffee and check whats been going down on face book , i slide on over to the vice and then bang it happens i hit that feckin brick wall what am i going to tie , what shall i use what is it for blah blah blah ,

well fortunately for me these episodes don't last very long and all i need to do is peer into one of my many draws of materials and I've usually snapped out of it today i just happened to pull open a draw with pink ultra hair and the ideas came a flooding well enough for one tie anyway and here is .....

PINK


pink bloody pink its a bloody pink fly what the feck i hear you cry ...well quite rightly so fellow chuckers but along with blue its a very underestimated colour i was one on a venue in summer last year crystal clear water and nothing would work so i had one tied with sf fibre so i stuck that on and it turned out to be the catching colour of the day when all around me were not catching on more trad patterns why well I'm buggered if i know and i really don't but it opened my eyes to alternative colours ill tell you that this ones tied on a 6/0 gamakatsu sl12s saltwater series hook



i have stuck the eyes on with epoxy and given a thin coat of epoxy round the eyes a few air spots have appeared but i learnt a few years ago that really doesn't matter a toss as the fish really don't care either way i mean Mr predator thinking "i wouldn't be seen dead eating that its got air bubbles in its eyes " i really don't think so i mean unless you a complete numpty and manage to make the whole eye white with air which to be quite honest is pretty much quite hard to do unless you mix it with an electric whisk but what idiots going to do that ........



so i guess although I've had success with pink on the pike I'm taking an educated guess that pretty much anything would stuff this down if it saw it , Ive tied it up using the 2 tie technique to give it more body in the right areas and using DNA holofusion in white and pink generous lashings of dark pink ultra hair eyes as always from Richard the eye supplier in the side menu who has just mailed me to say he has had another delivery in so get in there before they all go again ...told you they were good........

subbuggin the story continues.......

OK so unless you've been living under a rock you'll know that myself and ken over at pike adventures have a love of tying with deer hair and so much so that we have a site dedicated to that fine art of spinning deer hair for no other reason than the love of deer hair and for no commercial gain whatsoever , so every now and again myself or ken come across a deer hair tier of par excellence and we invite them to be a featured tier on the site .

well the latest discovery is an amazing tier called pat Cohen who hails from Cobleskill, NY now go check out his page on the buggin site here is the link amazing deer hair ties from pat

http://www.spanglefish.com/subbuggin/index.asp?pageid=211028

great to have you on board pat

a pat cohen deer hair


so back to other things my great redneck brother in Vermont has been doing some new style bunny bugs here's the link http://pikeadventures.blogspot.com

now ken has this way of doing heads which makes a really amazing fly i just cant get it myself when i try to tie them but love the look and the weight of the head provides amazing movement in the water "i know this because ken sent me a couple to try out" so hats off to ya for that one all you need to do is master the high tie mate eh ha ha ha ha ha



so here is a great video of a fly working underwater to finish the day off enjoy ok its a saltwater fly but it gives you an idea of how they work



so that's it for today for assorted ramblings hope you have enjoyed it no doubt the rest of the week will be filled with more randomness

tight lines fellow tiers and flingers around the word
dave mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)

internet detectives

right people lets get this guy caught hes been raiding your local fly shop stealing a lot of stuff now its hard enough for shops just now without dicks like this so everybody who has a blog get this picture on or if you have an Internet website get the picture on send this picture to everybody you know who fishes somebody has to know him ....thanks to mouldychum for bringing this to fly fishing communities attention ......come on people show you care



heres the original post on chum http://www.moldychum.com/home-old/2010/2/9/americas-most-wanted-fly-fishing-edition.html

lets go fellas

tuesday tie off

since last week i was of on my fluffing adventures there was no tie off with ken at pike adventures , so to ease us back into it we decided just to have a free tie off basically tie what you like ,
so i decided to tie a couple of bait fish that you'll find in loads of waters around the UK but I've used different materials and tying techniques for both , I've also soaked each flie to show the profile when wet as you know materials do different things when wet

skinny roach


roach come in all shapes and sizes depending where you fish the fatter ones are usually in places where there isn't predators , so the first roach is a skinny roach tied all in behind the hook eye the thinking behind this is that a skinny underfed fish is a prime target for a predator as it wont need to use much energy to catch it and get a meal . you could probably get away with using this for bass in saltwater as it may be mistaken for a sand eel ,



as you can see when wet the main bulk of the body is just behind the eyes tapering of to a skinny end a poor excuse for a fish that would more than likely if it was real see the back of a predators throat sooner rather than later



as you can see from this close up all the materials are tied just behind the hook eye this allows for maximum movement of the materials in the water , the epoxy head allows for a great action when you pause on the strip simulating a dying fish .

healthy roach


this one is tied pretty much the same as the first skinny roach but it has a wider profile this is achieved by tying in your first lot of materials just behind where you would tie if you were making the skinny version the second lot of materials goes just behind the hook eye by doing it this you can create a lot of bulk by being able to apply more materials than the skinny version

big fat wet one


the picture above is the wet version of the healthy roach as you can see by adding more materials and tying in a two step you get a great fat version of the skinny and even when wet you don't loose a great deal of the profile this is simply down to the two step tying method when wet this fly comes in at 9 inch's a great size for a predator snack , its funny that when you hold this fly wet in your hand it really does feel like a real fish kind of spongy .

RAINBOW TROUT


again tied with the two step method to give maximum bulk when wet of course you don't have to use the style of hook you can use a normal j hook but you will get less movement in the fly maybe you'd think not that's important but on some days that can be the key to fish on the bank
rainbow trout wet


again you can see by using the 2 step tying method you regain the profile when the fly is wet and i must point out this method does not work on all materials but does work very well when combining the materials listed below .

all the flies are tied using a combination of super hair , DNA fish hair , and DNA holo fusion and that's it . its really up to the individual if you use an epoxy head i don't always do this if I'm on a really shallow venue ill leave the epoxy head off and this gives it a very slow sink rate and a very attractive flutter on the retrieve

OUCH THAT HURT


the hooks i used on the flys above are the 6/0 gamakatsu SL126 these hooks are not cheap but they are the dogs bollox for this type of fly the 6/0 costs £5.00 UK for 6 the 2/0 size is £3.95 for 10 these hooks are very very sharp and tough well you'd expect them to be good for that price i order mine from orvis and if you don't have an orvis near you they will do mail order from there website www.orvis.co.uk

if you want to do these on normal j hooks then id highly recommend using sakuma mantas you can by them in bulk from here in the UK http://www.fishingdiscountstore.com/75.html and dont forget to go on over to ken capseys pike adventures to see what he came up with today here is the linkhttp://pikeadventures.blogspot.com/



tight lines till Thursday
mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)

back to normal this week

well after some great fishing adventures last week with tony harkin its back to the grind this week , I've already started by doing some updates to my website click the picture below to go see just click on the news section on the site .



the thing with my website as its probably the original predator only fly tying site on the net and the oldest I've always new stuff coming through that needs to be updated so as i do it ill be posting the link on the news section so you don't need to go trawling through old stuff to find the new stuff .



I've loads of stuff to do this week including a planning a few up and coming trips and some fly testing and I'm starting to get that itch again to get to the vice so yup you'll be seeing flies this week as well , and also some pictures form the trip last week , only the guilty need worry eh tony and redneck ha ha

so again many thanks to all the visitors to the site and blog and see ya all next week

tight lines
mcfluffchucker

a fluffers progress pt 2

so following on from yesterday our man tony had still not had a fish on the bank , and this simply would not do so as we sat on a bridge watching the birds , we decided to venture further away so we loaded our selves into the car and headed off to spots new i told tony i had a feeling he was going to catch today sometimes you just get that sixth sense ..........



so we arrived after many miles at our new spot and started to chuck fluff about unfortunately for me i could only come up with a fish scale (below) as i was taking the picture there was a cry from up the bank and indeed tony was into his first fly caught pike . after a very short tussle the fish was in the net photos taken and i showed tony the best way to realise the fish which was still very active ..... so well done Mr harkin your first fly caught pike is 8 pounds , and a great figure to try and better




tony first pike comes along side


tony at this point was absolutely ecstatic about his first fish and couldn't believe the power of it , well i said theres probably more to come yet .....so we moved a few hundred yards to another likely spot and tony by this time was casting like a pro a well presented fly landed and he provided to strip back bang another fish on , at this point yours truly was starting to feel a bit like a Gillie LOL but to be quite honest i didn't mind and it was great to see tony having a ball , so as he drew the fish over my waiting net i thought that's a scraper double so it was weighed and indeed it was a new Pb for him at 12 pounds lucky lucky bastard ..........


he just couldn't believe it 2 fish 2 PBS well he soon came down to earth with a bump with the arrival of a 2 pound jack however it was interesting seeing the bite marks on the side of it mmmmmmm

so after a while of not much activity we moved down a bit from our position and tony went just a bit further than me after a while i heard him holler and saw his rod over so went down to give him a hand .

when i got down to his position the fish had just come to the surface and it was big tony had also realised how big it was so it was my job now to keep him calm and get him not to make any daft little mistake that could see him lose the fish of a lifetime tony by this time was a jibbering wee girl and by the time i got it in the net he was done for . he asked about size and i said i had an idea but wanted to get the hook out first as it was fairly far back in the mouth i did this within a few seconds i didn't let tony do this as i wanted the fish back in the water asap , so it pulled the scales round to 21 lb the net weighed a pound so that is a new Pb fish for him of 20 lbs feckin well done fella


Tony's fly caught 12



tonys fly caught 20



me getting the hook out fast


a few seconds later the fly is out




so in a day
1st ever fly caught pike
3 personel bests
2 doubles
1 a magical 20lb

feckin result tony pleasure fishing with ya and glad it all came good

dave mcfluffchucker
a cave in scotland

a fluffers progress pt 1

so I'm back from a few days romping round after predators on the fly , and i was joined by a top bloke by the name of tony harkin now tony has only just joined the pike fly fishing association after being fed up of paying £70.00 a day for trout fishing in his local area for easy to catch stocked trout , absolutely disgusting paying that sort of cash for bloody trout .

anyway tony decided a couple of months ago to look for something else to fish for and he came upon our motley bunch of fruit loops and decided to give it a go , so back in November he joined me for the annual fenland flyer and although hardly anybody caught anything and despite my best efforts we could only get fish nipping at flies , but this didn't put tony off and a repeat was arranged .

so we turned up and we were faced with massive flooding on the river but not to worry we still had the other drain to fish and that was pretty much normal level so we would get some fishing in



so as the first morning dawned we were faced with freezing conditions but nothing keeps a good pike fly fisher down and although it was freezing we still found a couple of clear bits in the ice to fish into and i was determined that tony was having not only his first pike but his first pike on the fly , after an hour hoping around the first venue we had little interest so a move was planned and we headed of quite a few miles to the next spot



so we turned up at the next spot and what a difference not a bit of ice and looking very pikey



so OK i look like the village idiot but i tell you a good woolly hat makes all the difference when its cold you lose around 90% of your body heat through your head so cheers to ken for the under armour i think it will take off big time and if you a UK angler lookout for this as its the warmest I've ever had and at no time was i ever cold .....



so tony has really improved his casting skills since the fenland flyer and was casting the big flies no problem at all and seemed to be loving ever minute of it and not very worried about the lack of fish we continued on regard less and it was soon time for a breakfast break and a discussion on what to do next i was determined to get him his first fish .....

tony pretty much had the same fly on for 3 days i however as a tier loved to chop and change and see what was visible in the murky water how the flies worked etc etc sometimes this can be my down fall at times but I'm happy with what I'm doing.

NAILED


so while mucked around with flies and colours etc etc i managed to nail a fish of around 8lb beautifully marked and fighting fit i did notice that the fish had leeches on it so it had probably been sitting on the bottom inactive for a while the fact i was using a very slow strip and pause which would have kept the fly just inch's off bottom kinda bore out the fact that although the fish were there they were being pretty docile ....

i was pretty annoyed as i wasn't to worried about catching fish i really wanted tony to catch and despite him having a couple of close calls he didn't get one that day so we headed back of to the pub for a shower and a meal , but i told him not to worry to much as tomorrow i could feel it in my bones that he would catch one.

did he catch well let me tell you tune back in tomorrow evening for a real gob smacking shocker , you really wont want to miss part 2 with a day filled with shock and surprise

tight lines and thanks for tuning in
mcfluffchucker
(back in my cave in Scotland)

hello from the gutter

well not quite I've just not had a min to breath since my last post as I've been working some pretty long split shifts and I've been just nuts so the decision was also made last week to have a 3 day fishing bonanza with the fly next week with a chap called tony harkin , now tony is mad keen on fly fishing and has just taken up pike fly fishing , hes had a few near misses with them so its about time he got one so I'm taking him out on a trip to far off places where the fishing gods permitting he will stick his first toothy on the fly .............

packing up and traveling light

well maybe not so light the picture below is the stuff im taking with me , trust me you don't want to see how many fly boxes i left it was a bit of phone a Friend as to what was happening on the venue and choosing the most likely flies to stick it to em and below is the result . although if the truth be told id probably get away with just the boxes of kcs to be honest but well best be prepared and all that



new fangled technology

OK so the place I'm heading to is pretty dam remote I'm talking miles from the nearest road so Ive finally taken the plunge and got a new mobile phone , I've had one before oh yes but my son decided to stick it in the dogs water bowl to see if it floated , once he did that he tried to prise it open with a screw driver to see if it had let in water ....so i didn't bother after that .

but when your going to far away places safety is always the key being able to get hold of someone in a emergency could be the difference between life and death .

so the phone , well did i buy it because of the free Internet access , er no , did i buy it because it is small and compact er no , did i buy it because it had shed loads of free text messaging , er no

i bought it because it had a dirty great epoxy fish eye on the front.............FECKIN A




so with me being away next week there will be no Tuesday tie off with ken but will will return with a vengeance the following week so apologies out that i know people enjoy it from the mails i get but hell we gotta fish sometime .

kc split bunny double whammy baitfish



well come on i couldn't let a whole week go buy without at least one fly on the blog so here it is a variation on the split bunny and i think at 5 inch's its going to be a killer i just hope i don't bloody lose it this week as ill be stuffed i only had time to make one this morning before work "dhu"




so fellow fluff chuckers , tying nut jobs , predator aholics , i bid you far well till Friday when ill hopefully have some great stuff to report on if not ill be doing a moaning blog on Friday , so if you cant do without your daily fix of pike stuff then head on over to ken capseys pike adventures for a daily dose of redneck pike madness

c ya Friday folks
mcflufchucker
(a cave in Scotland)