gliss and glint plus flies and a monster perch

GLISS N GLINT PLUS MONSTERS
Nick over at deercreek sent me some cool new colours of gliss and glint plus the wonderful light and sparkly material that creates some pretty amazing baitfish patterns without having to add in your own flash and let me tell you it looks pretty fantastic in the water, fished lazily with short strip and pauses it looks almost lifelike which is a reason I use a bloody lot of it.

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So I decided this time round to do something a bit different and well pretty much do some simple colours and see what I could come up with the gliss n glint plus

So first up was a couple of green colours with the back being just a shade darker the flash you can’t really make out in the picture but it runs all the way through the body . The hook is a 4/0 sakuma manta and the fly is around the 7 inch mark, nice baitfish size and actually looks very nice , sometimes you just know when something’s going to catch fish this is one of those patterns

As Sammy Hagar once said “red red I love red” reds a great colour and I’m sure you’ll know from experience that a red headed fly coupled with a white body is often a deadly combo for predators so I’ve tweaked upon that very idea and pretty much done an all red fly but has uv flash’s running through the whole fly .this fly although fairly large is ultra-light as I’ve used pretty much the bare bones of material on it this you can see because if you look you can pretty much see right through the thing , and I can say that it has a far better movement in the water than a bulky fly , this does look very natural and with short strip and pauses it really does look like a dying baitfish , of course the overlarge eye helps as well to give it just the correct amount of weight to impart that movement of a dying fish
A couple of more natural patterns with red gator eyes and a new colour of olive that will be hitting the deercreek site hopefully fairly soon

Another basic 1 colour pattern in pink gliss and glint plus with a uv head a very fast tie and a great looking little bait fish, pink again is such an underrated colour and a few times it’s a colour that’s saved the day for me on a couple of occasions, I suspect this may be a great little pattern for fly fishing in saltwater as well kind of got that smelt shape to it ……..

A basic blue herring colour and again an underrated colour for the pike angler blue, blue is one of those colours that is the last to disappear at depth so of course not only a great fly for saltwater fishing in depths up to around 100 feet but for the pike fly fisher it’s a fly that we know would stand a chance of catching fish over 50ft should you find yourself chasing fish in these depths the fly would be seen and if it can be seen then of course it can be attacked by predators

Same fly as above but I’ve added a green gliss and glint plus back to it just for something a bit different sometimes being a bit different can save the day

Talking about being different here’s a colour I’ve never used before a nice kind of rust colour, I’ve used it for the back of the fly and used a light pink for the body , what’s it supposed to mimic well to be honest nothing at all its just a combo of colours I’ve not used before and who knows it just may be that classic killer colour , that’s the fun of fly tying there a million variations on what you can tie up just go with what you fancy if your confident with what you have made and you think it looks like it will catch fish then well that’s half the battle .

Of course no ties would be complete without adding a couple of red and whites to the armoury, the white gliss and glint plus has a very nice stiffness to the material kind of stiffer than superhair but soft feeling like ep fibre and it moves lovely in the water which to be honest is why I bang on about it a lot well we are all out there to catch fish aren’t we and if it helps achieve that goal then brilliant here it is

As with a lot of my baitfish patterns these days I apply a coat of deercreeks tack free UV to the heads this give the eyes a little protection and add a little weight to the head which helps in the action of the fly, for those of you in the states that have mailed me about buying the tack free across the pond hopefully there will be a supplier there soon as soon as I know more I’ll let you know believe me it’s worth the wait.

So my Sunday at work ended up being very productive and to be honest I had a ball I was getting colour combos left right and centre I was really having a blast and totally in the zone a great place to be in and at the end of my shift I felt I had really achieved something, actually all I think I had really achieved was the fact that I may need to go out and get some more storage boxes for them, oh hell

So a second box of gliss and glint flies rears its head to be honest these flies look bloody awesome in the water which is why I have a couple of boxes of them and no matter where I go to fish I will always have at least one box of them in my bag give them a go you won’t be disappointed

Back subbugin
Deerhair to the metal

It’s getting to nearly that time of year when subbugs come out from under the stones and annoy the crap out of predators and it was in the back of my mind to start doing a few more when along comes a pal who wanted a couple to try, so no time like the present so I dived into the zone and did a couple for him there big and move a lot of water and have caught people a hellava lot of fish and no there not Dahlberg divers

the second of my friends bugs he wanted a red and white one also the red as you can see is more a muted red colour than a traditional red and white although the feather behind the head is , to be honest I’ve had more on the muted red than a bright red especially on sunny days in the summer not sure if its down to colour or the noise the things make subsurface that does the trick but one things for sure the bloody do the trick when it comes to predators .
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I remember once when I was out on a big loch in Scotland and had been trying all sorts of flies and methods all day to no avail I was pretty much on last knockings of the day when I decided to switch over to a fast sinking line and lead core leader and a bumble bee subbug of 8 inches in length and just float it off the bottom in 30ft of water well let me tell you that fly saved the day in that last hour I absolutely leathered the fish out , now I had fished the area before with nothing taking so it may well have been that the fish switched on to feed or it may well been the action and colour of the bug who knows but I do know that one other boat had one fish the entire day so I like to think it was the bug as its proved itself a few times around the world in hard conditions

Big shout out time
I’m privileged in life to have some great friends who know I call a spade a spade and don’t take crap from people and I tell it like it is, even though I get peoples backs up sometimes they know me for who I am as a person and fellow fly fisher, one of those people is the pffa membership sec Ernie firth.
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Now dear old Ernie has been around and been fishing since the time of the dinosaur’s and I think I’ve also know him that long and had the pleasure of blanking with him on more than one occasion in fact when I go south to fish with Ernie I sometimes don’t even bother taking flies with me not saying that he is a Jonah or anything but I’m not the first he’s blanked with on a boat, but to give him his credit he keeps at it come rain or shine (he doesn’t do ice and snow though) , so the last time I saw Ernie the awesome was back in November when I was down for the pffas annual fenland flyer and as per usual whenever I go down to see him ill dump a load of flies on him as a thank you for the roof bed and house ghost(although that’s another story) so in amongst these flies was a pattern I had made called a down and dirty minnow pretty much a fly for getting down through the layers and bounce around the bottom (oh err Mrs) so I gave some to Ernie to try whenever he felt like it .

So that was back in November and of course we both blanked at the flyer (no change there then) , I had spoken to Ernie last week and he told me he was heading out with Simon from http://www.pikeshack.com/ to fish one of Simons local rivers , well yesterday I got a very excited email and a few pictures from Ernie of a truly enormous perch of 4lbs that he caught on the down and dirty minnow , now this is an absolute cracker of a fish and to have caught such a fine specimen on the fly is a massive achievement I mean some people go most of their angling life’s searching for such fish and never seeing them , in fact this stretch of water where he caught it used to be my local stretch for many years and I had some encounters with very large fish following flies on this river but never been able to hook one up so massive congratulations to Ernie for this monster perch and truly a fish of a lifetime

Ernie I salute you buddy you are a fishing god

On that very happy note I bid you farewell as im off to get ready for a hit and run trip next week so tune in towards the end of the week to see how I did, hopefully a lot better than last week and one things for sure sub buggin action will be had
I’m on it
Mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)

pike fly rod sale

LAST KNOCKINGS ON A GREAT PIKE FLY ROD
Just got a call from Simon over at kayakuk he is down to the last few rods he imported last year he has now dropped the price of these rods to make way for new boating stock so if you’re looking for a great low cost rod for pike or saltwater fly fishing then please read on

SPEC
Specifications (built for tropical saltwater fishing and immensely powerful in the butt)
9 foot length
4 sections
Full wells cork grip Alloy reel seat,
up locking.
Fighting butt

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this rod is a very nice bit of kit 4 piece which is easily better for traveling than 2 or 3 piece rods and I've never suffered from having a 4 piece , the thing i like about this rod is that it is very forgiving in its action and would be fantastic for a first time angler the line-up dots make getting your rings lined up an easy job if you’re in a hurry the other thing strangely enough is the fact it also has a fly keeper ring which is always a bonus , I’m constantly amazed at the fact that you can pay 400 /500 / or even 600 quid for a fly rod and the thing doesn’t come with a keeper ring
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the rod is rated for a 9/10 wgt line although i think you could easily fish an 11 wgt on it although 10 wgt is amble for pike but it’s nice to have that option , the day i fished it i had a rather bracing wind in my face and i was pleasantly surprised when my Rio pike/musky line coupled with a big 9 inch deercreek gliss n glint baitfish cut through the wind no problem and got me a good line out , I managed to bully a couple of fish up around the 8/9lb mark and to be honest they didn't stand a chance on this rod , which is good as you want to get them in as fast as possible , I look forward to getting something a bit bigger on it to really put its through paces , I also look forward to getting out into the saltwater with it as I think it will perform brilliantly

Retail on this rod is now £120.00 UK plus post and packing a , big price drop (overseas buyers just get in touch with them for a price) and to be honest that's a heck of a good price for a rod of this quality
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The picture below is me bent into a low double with the rod and let me tell ya it has great stopping power

If you’re interested in purchasing this snazzy bit of kit then mail Simon direct in the UK here
mailto:sales@kayakuk.com
Or call him direct for further details and ordering info

Uk 07768-632-560

when there gone there gone folks

testing tube flies for predators

A new take on an old idea

As said in a previous post I get the idea of tubes but I found that it was a pain in the backside for predators having to either carry them pre rigged on wire or having to clip the hook off change the fly and then re crimp the wire especially after catching a fish when wire can sometimes get frayed from teeth , I even once tried using a flying hook just above the tube but it was all a bit of a pain in the back side so I left it alone for many years until I picked up on the idea again so I got tying

I had almost a brain wave when I realised that I could actually make a completely new rig for tube flies aimed at pike and predators which makes changing tubes a breeze here’s how I did it
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First you have to use Authanic wire from predator bite the reason is the only one I could get doubled up through the tube and allowing free movement of the tube up the trace therefore giving you less leverage on the hook which should equate to more fish on the bank.so first up you’re going to need 16 inches of Authanic wire which you will fold in half then join the two loose ends together with either a loop knot or a sliding knot a surgeons know is a fast and easy knot to use http://www.animatedknots.com/surgeonsloop/index.php

Join to your leader like the picture below don’t worry about the know being a tight fit here as this trace will last you for a long time (some people I know are still using the same trace a full season on)

Next you have to use your threader , I’ve made this from a length of backing and I’ve added 2 inches of deercreeks diamond hard uv on the end of each end to enable it to go through the tube more smoothly if you don’t do this it will stick to the inside of the tube when wet , really does make all the difference when threading


What we then do is thread one end of the backing right through the tube and through the looped Authanic wire then take your loose end and thread back through the tube

So when you put the loose end back into the tube you will have something looking like the picture below ready to be pulled through all you need to do is push the end through the tube till it come out from the bottom of the tube

Once you have done this you can then pull the Authanic wire through the tube like the picture below this is why you harden the ends of the backing threader , because you probably wouldn’t get it through the tube

Once you’ve removed the threader it’s now time to attach the hook which is done by quite simply threading the loop through the eye of the hook and then back on itself this is such a great way of attaching a hook and even when wet you can change it no bother (apologies for the cut thumb I had a close encounter with a zip on my bag).

The hook now attached , I have used a circle hook as I believe this is best for the job, as you may be aware salmon anglers especially here in Scotland use treble hooks , this is simply not needed with pike fishing and of course with a single circle hook there no need to strike on a hit as 99% of the time the fish will lip hook itself , the other thing to mention is that you will see a lot of set ups using beads to stop the eye of the hook going up into the tube , with the size of hooks we use for pike the eyes are usually big enough not to get stuck but feel free to use one if you wish

The finished tube ready to fish I’ve used a weighted tube here as I was wanting to be close to the deck

Urban fishing at its well most urban I have 2 rods set up here as I have a friend helping me test the rigs out the rods ive used are pikesabers loaded with 10wgt lines

The water where I was testing was around 5ft deep and slightly murky hence the orange and green tubes which showed up nicely in the water the one great thing about this venue is although there isn’t a great deal of casting area behind you a decent roll cast was getting me right up to the boat

After a few hours and various spots I like to fish without any action I decide to change the tube over to a slightly different pattern as you can see the tube is still running free on the trace the hook is actually only a size 3/0 it’s just that the tube is further away from the camera than the hook.
The interesting thing about testing this rig so far is that I was around 4 hours into the test and amazingly despite having quite a few hang ups (goes with the territory urban canal fishing shopping trolleys etc.) I hadn’t had a single foul up and also quite interesting was none of the material had fouled around the hook promising very promising.

Although this looks skinny and sandeel like when in the water they really come alive with a big baitfish profile very very nice

To change the tube is simple; all you have to do is push to loosen the hold on the eye and push the hook through the loop and that’s it all you have to do is put another tube on as described at the start of this post and that’s it do in just a minute or so easy

And you’re back fishing
If you have any questions about the rig or tubes please feel free to contact me, I will next week do a tube tying video and a separate video on rigging them so tune in next week or subscribe for updates

So the whole test was almost a complete success with the rigs I say almost as neither myself nor my fishing buddy managed to hook up to any fish, to be honest there could be a 101 reasons why we didn’t catch, I do have my own ideas as I had left it very late in the morning to fish as there was no way I could get my unnamed fishing partner up to be fishing at 4am when to be honest it’s the prime time on here before all the cyclists , joggers, dog walkers and assorted city slickers head for work .

This picture above looks very pikey and to be honest most of the canal looked like this in the sections I fished, but further up in my favourite section the council have cleaned the bankside installed lovely solar lights into the freshly tarmacked towpath and it looks awful from an angler’s point of view time will tell but before I decide if they have completely cocked up the fishing ill need to do a couple of early morning jaunts first.

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and in other news

http://geadais.blogspot.com/
a brand new blog has appeared on the radar please go on over and give him your support i suspect this is going to be a worth a read blog and im looking forward to his posts go sign up folks

tight lines from the cave

mcfluffchucker

new stuff and Reinventing the tube

new stuff and Reinventing the tube
ok so been and found the perfect rucksack for my short sessions I can carry a couple of rods in tubes and it has enough room for my big finsport and the little accessories that I need for a short trip obligatory bag of crisps bottle of water unhooking gear etc. etc. this is going to do the job perfect a real great hiking bag as well think I’m going to get along fine with this purchase
Wychwood Rucksack

Here’s the Features include: Lightweight, 25litre contemporary design, Sweat-proof, easy breather fixing, Weight distributing back protection system, Two rod tube carriers-ring net hangs, Dual Fast access, fly patch store, Zinger hangers on shoulder straps, Ideal for fishing far away marks, Weather and Rot resistant, Full 16890D nylon material

I bought this from a tackle shop here in Edinburgh please click the like to go see them
http://shop.countrylife-edinburgh.com/

Country life is an actual shop you can go in and touch stuff and look at stuff, I do love shopping for bargains online and I fully support the small business online as most of the time it’s just some guys who had an idea and use it to pay for their fishing. I was actually quite glad they had this in stock because to be honest I probably wouldn’t have bought it online if I couldn’t have actually have had a feel of it to see what it was all about and if it would meet my needs fly tying materials you pretty much know what you’re getting but sometimes with hardware it’s nice to have a feel.

I’m doing some subbugs later this week so while I was in the shop I picked up a couple of packets of schlappen feathers as I have a few new bug ideas I want to try out , while I was wandering around the shop I came across something I pretty much forgotten about till the other day when I was digging about in my boxes looking for some fur (that doesn’t sound right does it) but anyway I found a patch of fur that pal Stevie slight had given me , I had got it home and then put it in a box to be played with at a later date , well this was summer last year and yesterday I was playing with tube flies (more on that later) and I found the patch that Stevie had given me so I tied up the red and white tube fly you can see later in this post , and I was very impressed with the quality of the product .

Well it came to me in a flash after looking at the packaging that I had used this company before many many many years ago when they were trading on eBay and I still have a box full of there fox tails in various colours (these I use for a variety of flies) so I was delighted when on the pack that Stevie had given me was a website http://www.foxy-tails.co.uk/ so last night I checked it out and found they had a whole heap of very very very cool furs and tails , if you’re a pike fly fisher who does his own flies then I really can’t recommend these guys highly enough as when I got to wandering around the store today I came across a whole wall full of the sexiest furs in the coolest of colours I picked up a couple of packs (won’t be the last) the results of which will be somewhere down below on this blog post made from there cashmere goat just try some folks you won’t be disappointed……..I’m delighted to have re connected with them and you can expect a lot of these materials appearing on patterns in the coming months for my naturals box

Of course I had to pick up a bag of flash as well kid in a sweet shop

New eyes

I decide also today to pick up a new pair of sun glasses not like we ever get any sun in Scotland but more for eye protection although when I’m using flies that track just under the surface without breaking it, a good pair of glasses to take the glare of the water and see you fly is essential, well it is for me because one the greatest sights that I ever see is a pike chasing down a sub-surface subbug or an ugly betty I simply would not see this without the aid of sun glasses .
These glasses are not the most expensive in the world they only cost me £15.00 and yes they look a bit tarty and flash I’m sure the fish will appreciate the effort I’m putting in, but to be honest I bought a pair of shimano glasses quite a few years ago for around the same price but they have become a bit battered over the years although still very much usable I thought I’d invest I a new pair, I’ll keep the others as a spare pair in the box
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Tube flies
I have a long history of trying tube flies for pike going back long before anybody had probably thought of it there was certainly nothing on the net about tubes for pike, when I first started looking into using them I had been in a posh tackle shop looking for bucktail (and they followed me around the shop didn’t have tweeds on ya see) and I knew that the tubes for salmon that I saw were fairly large big spate river patterns , I still remember looking at then thinking if there was a way to rig them for predators and this was always the stumbling block for me as I could not think of a way to rig them and still be able to change flies easily without having to make up a new wire trace each time .

Of course the tube fly would have an advantage in fact that you get less leverage on the hook as the tube slides away so the idea for pike in principle is good but up till now I couldn’t think of a way to rig them and be able to change flies without a massive headache until now, I’ve now come up with a rig that will allow me to change the tubes fairly easily , well easily enough that I’m happy to fish them and change flies as and when I need to im going to try them out this week with a buddy
Of course no doubt somebody will probably mail me and say hey dave have you seen this

Tying tubes for pike
Any visitors to my website

http://www.spanglefish.com/pikeandpredatorfishingflies/index.asp?pageid=164274

will know that I have tied some and theres a few patterns on there and youll notice some of them are pre rigged , of course ive now moved on from those but ill keep the page up and add to it as Ive got a lot of ideas swimming around in my head so it will be a cool evolution to watch ill update the wording on the site to reflect this at some point .so now we come down to the tying of the things , well I use one of those adapters that you get to stick in your normal vice I will I think at some point get one of those tube fly vices but they seem to be a bit pricy at the momment so ill stick with the adapter till they come down a bit . so before I fit the tube over the adapter what I do is add some pearl mylar then tie of the back end with some orange flat thread then I place the tube on the adaptor

To seal the deal I use a thin coat of deercreeks tack free uv and zap it for just a couple of seconds with the laser diode this gives you a good firm hold

About 3 quarters of the way up the tube ive tied in a clump of short yellow goat hair and then tease it round the hook then tie down, I then coat this with some diamond hard varnish to protect the mono thread, I’m sure there will be a few purists out there who tie salmon flies and may have stumbled on this post will be cringing at the way I tie these but I’m not doing big posh salmon flies here im doing predator flies so apologies to lord Archie McEwen from lower tweed side for upsetting his stiff upper lip

After this all I do is tie in an orange back of goat hair and add a few plumes of dyed peacock eyes http://www.deercreek.co.uk/Feathers.html I’ve had these for a while and hadn’t figured out what I was going to do with them till now I think the look really nice on the tubes and will give the fly that little bit extra , I’m really quite confident on these , as you can see I’ve used 3d eyes on these but I wanted a little weight so used a 5 min epoxy rather than a uv on the head.

I found a trick a long time ago when I was doing epoxy heads on tubes, because when you need to turn the tubes on a rotary drier you can’t just stick it in the foam like a hook because well you have no hook, so a packet of cocktail sticks does the job perfect just stick the stick into the tube add the epoxy and tick in the foam on the drier perfect, and let me assure you it doesn’t move and says until you want to take it off.

Cocktail sticks in action

So after playing with a couple of smaller patters I hit out on a bigger snack, the tubes I have in box came to me years ago from an old salmon fly tier (quite an interesting story and bloke actually as he never fished in his life but his flies caught thousands of salmon ill save that one for a later date) he gave me them because I was just chatting to him one day and he said he couldn’t be doing with these new-fangled plastic tubes he had been sent and much preferred his old metal ones (na changing it ,its na broken kid he told me) so I ended up with a bag load of plastic , but they were on the small size so I ended up using some of those long plastic sea booms you can buy for sea angling and just chopping them down to size easy and costs penny’s and you can get quite a lengthy fly from them .

So out comes the afore mentioned foxy tails patch and a body was added to the tube and a couple of bits of flash along each side some orange Icelandic sheep hair and I reckon I’ve got a pretty sexy looking fly and looking forward to getting it wet

So of course with the advent of my tube fly second coming of course I needed something to keep the things in, as ill need to store the leaders and hooks separate of course, so found this rather fetching little deep compartment lure box at the local tackle shop at the princely sum of £4.99 and I’m thinking that will carry all I need for now so purchased it

I’ll get loads of the buggers in here, funnily enough I did a quick search for tube fly storage and there were a few new storage systems out there for tubes but I just didn’t fancy spending that amount of money when to be honest a box like the one above does the job just as good, am I going a bit too far with the tubes mmmmmmmm not sure time will tell and the tests I have planned will sort out if it’s going to be worth pursuing doing them
Me being me I needed to fill the box with a few patterns so been tying a few and playing with ideas, I have just worked a very long weekend shift with pretty much 4 hours sleep over the whole weekend so today was a pretty much stay and home and do nothing kind of day, I actually spent the first part of the day watching some fishing shows I had recorded the previous week, but I had the urge to tie up some tubes with the foxy tails id bought last week so I dragged a few bits from the cave to tie some up in front of the TV …..

I decided that within all the tubes that I wanted to try I wanted a fly that will get down fast and I wanted a simply pattern today I really didn’t fancy stretching my brain with complicated patterns so I threw a length of cashmere goat on the tube and added some flash on the back of it everything is tied right pretty much on the nose

Some orange on top and some dumbbell eyes to get it down and to be honest I don’t see why this wouldn’t catch fish as long of my new rig for them hooks em in the first place ( a big special thanks goes out too rich for the eyes).

So far I’m very impressed with the build and profile so I tied one with a chenille body but although the side profile looks great I really don’t think I need the chenille ill still give it a chuck though, I’m toying with the idea of just colouring the tube a matching colour to the back material but although I don’t think it will make any difference just make me feel better. Many thanks to martin from Mscustom lures who sent me this really cool pic of a jack that really wanted a subbug he had tied ,just goes to show they can’t resist the things I mean look how far down this one is crazy absolutely crazy lol

So my bags packed and I’m ready to fish and boy I’m looking forward it
Later folks
Mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)