whats in the box jock

thanks to Bob Cozzo from Ely, Minnesota for a mail asking for a bit more detailed explanation on what i carry in my boat box , well happy to help bob here below is the contents of my box unpacked and on the living room floor (the wife is out)

my boat box is completely different to my bank bag and that again is completely different to what id take if i was traveling ultralight but more on that in another blog post , i tend to choose water specific flies these days that match what the fish are probably used to seeing swimming about , i also include a few flyer flies flies that id maybe not use on a particular water , so depending on season and what the fish are up to my choice of flies can vary greatly in both colour and size , the flies above represent what im hauling just now , again this can change from trip to trip

so whats in the box then

i carry a large ziplock bag which i put all my spools of leader materials this keeps em altogether and easy access on the boat if i need to change leaders i have all the spools in one bag ready to go

a couple of plano boxes one has all the deerhair head flies , I've learnt through experience that deerhair can be flattened if stored incorrectly , there is also a deep clip lock box that i have a reel and some spare spools in it fits great in the box and again keeps everything together , i also have in this picture a sea fishing rig wallet that i keep all my traces in ready made up and ready to clip on to a leader although ince discovering authanic wire it doesn't get out much now

i also carry a small range of tools and unhooking equipment i carry a few styles of unhooking pliers short ones tend to be what i use most as most of the fish i catch are usually lip hooked or just inside the mouth but i always carry longer ones in case i do deep hook one but this has yet to happen , knifes are also useful to clear weed of props and a million other things , i also carry a multi tool again a million different uses for it and handy to have in the box especially if you get a hook in the hand .

a longer type clip box is a recent addition to the box fits in a corner quite nicely and for my use carry a couple of spools of authanic wire a pair of small sharp scissors for cutting the authanic with , and i also keep a small box of cross lock swivels in here that i use on the end of my traces for quick change of fly , again all easy to access in one place , i also carry a small roll of electrical tape this has many uses from using as a finger guard when stripping line in the wet to covering cuts and using to mark you line to keep you fly at a specific depth in the water , a million uses

when every thing is packed away it all fits quite snugly into the box , the box itself is a daiwa seat bot that course anglers use in the UK , im not sure if you can get them overseas if you then a large plastic cool box will also do the job if you can get one with a hinged lid even better

the inside lid i have lined with a cut to size yoga matt and used a hot melt glue gun to stick it down on these i tend to have the flys im going to be starting out with and flies i want to try in the water also a great place to store used flies to dry , make sure all your flies are dry at the end of the trip if not take them out and dry them separately

i have a rapala clip on unhooking and scissors tool kit that your supposed to clip on your best , i clip it to the side of my box and i always have ultra fast access to a knife and unhooking equipment , and that's that hope it was helpful to you bob

on the vice

been a busy week for me topping up predatorbite with flies so ive had little time to play with my own patterns until last night when i decided to whack out a couple of buck tail patterns which came out better than i expected one in black with black flash

and of course one in chartreuse with a nice green flash through it like this pattern quite a lot will be playing with a few more of these patterns

while i was doing the predatorbite order i was churning out the flies and wondered how long it was taking me to do a rainbow trout pattern so i timed myself and i managed to tie a fly in 2 Min's so with that being so easy i decided to make a short video on the tie , the video actually takes 8 Min's or so but im talking through it but you ca tie this no bother in just a few Min's , a quick and easy but great looking fly enjoy




enjoy and see you all soon

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

adventures in diamond hard uv

ADVENTURES IN DIAMOND HARD UV RESIN
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DIAMOND HARD TACK FREE U.V. RESIN is quite amazing stuff and unlike other torch activated uvs out there this stuff really is tack free and cures in seconds and most importantly it wont break the bank , there's quite a few things you can do with uv but its not in my mind a complete replacement for epoxy or glue it has its use along side these products , and one thing i really do love about it is doing what I've blogged about today

these eyes are called sea eyes , i got these from rutland fly fishing in the UK but i don't think they do them anymore you can however get them from lake-land fly tying they are exactly the same ones here's the link aluminium sea eyes they are sold in packs of 25 for the ridiculously cheap price of 2.50 UK basically they are like dumbbell eyes like you get on clousers but these are made from aluminium and have a really cool recess that you can stick in your own 3d eyes so of course this brings up a gazillion possibilities for the fly tier , and the other bonus is being aluminium there are very light which in turn reduces the sink rate of your fly over the trad metal dumbbells , these ones being large are also a great option for the pike fly tier

I've used these eyes quite a lot in past and before id have to mix up a little 5 min epoxy then ad a bit to the recess then place the eye on top then add a another little bit of epoxy on top of the positioned eye then wait for it to dry before turning the sea eye over and repeating the process this takes a bloody age to do and you can only do a limited amount of eyes at one time before the epoxy goes hard and you have to mix a new batch up

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as you can see in the picture above the handy dispenser makes it really easy to drop a little bit into the recess of the eye

i then place the small 3d on top and push down with a bodkin as you push down the diamond cure will overflow a bit at the sides but don't worry about this as it will even itself out on the next step

just top up with diamond cure to completely seal the eye in , it will form the shape of the eye just don't overfill the eye for the best results , you can always just add a bit at a time curing as you go till you get the desired effect and thickness

curing takes seconds with the very cool half the price twice the job of other similar looking torches ultrafire uv torch and seconds is really all it takes , the torches come in a an amazing 19.95 UK with batteries fitted compere that to 34.oo UK on other sites well that's quite a saving for the same torch

so having set the eyes you need to prepare the hook i still go with the old build a dam on each side of where the eye is going to sit (you can just see it with my rubbish photography) im also using a clear mono thread from uncle Greg over at piketrek and its only 1.50 UK for 200m another bargain

so what i do know is add a covering of diamond hard over the thread and on the spot where the eyes are going to sit , you only need a small amount on there




sit the eye on and whip round a few times to hold it in place add a small blob of the diamond hard to the dumbbell whipping

then zap it for a few seconds and that's all you need

this has set rock solid and you wont be able to shift it a great solid bond


ive just decided to do the most messy fly in the world just made up of angel hair and nothing else plenty of flash and plenty of movement

some red angel hair tied in under and in front of the eye and fold back and secure cant beat some red in head

there you have it a great looking sparkly fly with a rock solid eye , of course you can pretty much add any kind of eye you like to the dumbbells , and its fast and easy to do give it a try ,

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and that's me for the week no fishing due to bloody awful wind this week here so maybe next week ill maybe get out who knows if i don't at least i can get onto vice for some entertainment

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

welcome to scotland

you got to just shake your head sometimes , id looked at the weather forecast and it said bright with 10mph winds , not the most ideal conditions for pike fishing but sometimes you just got to go with it , and that's what i did the forecast said the wind would die down and to be honest i could handle 10mph even rowing by hand so with that in mind i arrived at the loch with a 50/50 confidence but sometimes its just great too be out in beautiful surrounding's

i was on the water early to make the most of things i like to get on water early first light if possible give me a better chance of being on the money when the underwater dinner bell goes off , so i rowed up the loch to my first spot and tried a few patterns around the area for a few hours .

there was nothing much going on using the intermediate line fishing down through the layers so i decided to change over to a floating line and an ugly Betty fly on the surface to see if i could get them agitated to take a surface fly making some noise i fished around the edges on some of my favorite lies where bank access is difficult so threes a bonus right there

with the wind getting up even worse and only a few half hearted nips at the flies i decide to take a break and dig up a late breakfast and think about what i was going to do next as i wasn't coming off the water till i had a fish to the boat , i knew the conditions were getting even harder with a now scorching sun beating down and the wind up to way more than 10mph i seriously needed a rethink on tactics , sometimes a radical change is the way to go on a hard day , the bummer is if this water was in the states id just stick on a gurgler and go largemouth , well it ain't its Scotland so a rethink is the only thing i can do

my thinking was black yup plain old black flies on the bottom ya see the water is still pretty green and rubbish visibility and i figure on such a hot day i figured the fish would be down on the deck , so i rigged up a 5 inch subbug in noir (black to me and you) i also changed to a stripped bass intermediate line as i still wanted to search out the layers with this fly , first cast i let the fly go right down and did a strip pause strip and within a a couple of pulls the rod arched over into a satisfying curve FISH ON BABY the bug does it again

a first look as it shot to the surface very annoyed at getting caught out

the way the bug was sitting in the pike mouth i guessed id pulled the fly right past its mouth anyway the fish couldn't resist the passing snack and it nailed it check out the teeth

just got to love those predators and on a day where conditions were bloody awful i was delighted to be holding a well earned fish


and there you have the killer bug , this is highly visible in the water and the 7mm animal eyes give it the action of a glidebait in the water , used with the wonderful authentic wire from predatorbite.com give this sub bug maximum movement in the water i mean this thing really does look like a fish in the water

so my box of shinny stuff was confined to the box all day , as i carried on to miss a load of fish to the bug mostly turning at the side of the boat in shallow water that all they wanted black bugs .

so with the wind getting up i decided to head back to the dock and home as there was white caps starting to happen and that's never a good sign . its really quite rare to have a day like this in Scotland at this time of year and from now on i think the weather will go down the pan its already being forecast snow for the end of October , but ill still manage a couple of trips out and hopefully a few more through November if the snow holds off well you cant believe the forecasters
got a busy week ahead lots of tying to do so stay tuned midweek

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

time flies

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

take care if your out

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

life

ROCKS

ENJOY THE BUZZ

gliss n glint plus and diamond hard uv

MERRY CHRISTMAS

well that's what i thought when i got a package through the door yesterday with a nice diamond hard UV resin kit from http://www.deercreek.co.uk/ now i use various epoxies and i indeed if you read my blog regularly you will know i also have a UV drying case that i can put multiple flies on so i was keen to try just one of these torch kits .......

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the one thing that really shocked me was when doing some research into the torch i found a UV torch that was exactly the same for a wallet breaking £47.00 pounds the guys at deercreek do there torch as a stand alone product for £19.99 and you can actually buy the whole kit from deercreek at £29.99 . im really shocked at difference in price on quite a few sites you cant buy a branded kit for any where near that money , so hats off to deercreek for not ripping people off and another reason why i support cottage industry , shame on the others

what i wanted to do was 2 things with the diamond cure , i wanted to A- see how it worked just for sticking eyes to flies and B - how it did a full UV head covering the eyes . the first thing i noticed with the torch when placing eyes on was how easy it was to do and a firm bond was easily achieved , the one disadvantage of uvs though is that you don't have the option to re adjust the eye position which you can do with 5 min epoxy but that's a small thing and if you get the position correct in the first place then it shouldn't even be a problem , of course you may wish to stick them down with something like croc glue first if doing a full head .......

i then tried to do a full head covering the eyes and giving it a solid lightweight head , the first thing i noticed was that how fast it cured 3.2 seconds with the ultrafire torch quite incredible and very easy to work with .

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 .
breaking news
HOT NEWS, Internationally famed Irish A.P.G.I.A. leader, Lawrence Finney recently tried Diamond Hard after every other similar product & was "gob-struck" by just how good it is. This came after Lawrence had issues with a different UV resin.
All his buzzers he tied for a customer all stuck together.

On showing it to several other A.P.G.A.I. members, who were more than a bit sceptical. They ordered it on-sight.

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if you wish to see more or order the full kit (at that price you'd be daft not to) click on the picture below

(dont people be fooled into buying other overpriced uv kits this stuff is rock hard and tack free)

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flying the colours

i also got through some new colour of angelhair type flash in a lovely rainbow trout colour from deercreek this was just a sample pack and will be available through nick in a few weeks (ill blog when its available ) unfortunately i was only able to do a couple of flies with it as it was a only a sample , i really look forward to tying some more up when its available .

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 .

gliss and glint plus isn't expensive just £2.69 for a generous hank and if you use it sparingly with another colour you can get half a dozen large pike flies out of it just remember with this material less is more

if you want to try gliss and glint plus you can get it from the link below

http://www.deercreek.co.uk/Deer-Creek-fly-tying-materials.html

if your out and about have a great weekend and remember support cottage business

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)