some pike flies

fluff glorious fluff
Sunday was a great day for me although i was at work i wasn't that busy so i took the opportunity to whack out a few patterns just for fun

the days flies , although this wasn't all i tied as i tied a few of each pattern nothing worse than having a great catching fly then losing it up a tree and not having a spare , been there done that not doing it again

hook - Gamakatsu sl12 6/0
belly - white ep
middle - yellow angel hair
back - copper ep sparkle
eye - 8mm gator eye from deercreek
(head sealed with diamond hard uv )

hook - Gamakatsu sl12 6/0
belly - white ep
back - silver angel hair
eye - 8mm fluro orange eye from deercreek
(head sealed with diamond hard uv )

hook - Gamakatsu sl12 6/0
belly - olive gliss and glint plus
back - bbq shrimp gliss and glint plus
throat - pink gliss and glint pluss plus
eye - 7mm gator eye from deercreek
(head sealed with diamond hard uv)

hook - sakuma manta 4/0
belly - white gliss and glint plus
lateral line - copper ep flash
back - bbq shrimp gliss and glint plus
eye - 8mm fluro eye from deercreek
(head sealed with diamond hard uv )
FLASH ALICE

hook - Gamakatsu sl12 6/0
belly - yellow angel hair
back - copper e.p sparkle
eye - 9mm gator eye from deercreek
(head sealed with diamond hard uv )

flash alice eye close up

hook - Gamakatsu sl12 6/0
belly - yellow angel hair
back - chartreaus angel hair
throat - red perm marker
eye - 9mm gator eye from deercreek
(head sealed with diamond hard uv )

close up of the eye do eyes make a difference who knows but they sure look good

hook - sakuma manta 4/0
belly - silver angel hair
back - green chartreus angel hair
eye - 9mm gator eye from deercreek
(head sealed with diamond hard uv )
PORTMORE LIGHTNINGS

just stockin up on a few lightning patterns

later folks enjoy
mcfluffchucker
(a cave in scotland)

p,s sorry about the wacky layout today dont know whats going on with that

good evening fellow loonies

traveling light
as you'll be aware i have a few different boxes and bags for various styles of fishing boat, bank , roving , traveling etc and its nice to have the option to do what i like gear wise and be able to pick and choose boxes of flies to go with what ever water I'm fishing , although pretty much all the flies will catch fish i can make my chances better with pre picked flies for any given venue i choose to fish , for example if i head to a local venue filled with small baitfish then I'm not going to go down there with a box full of 10 inch surface busters , not that they wont catch but ill get more fish on the bank with smaller 5 inch patterns so its nice to have a box of these i can just throw in the bag and go, same thing with another venue where larger flies are better i have boxes of them ready to throw in the bag as well so its nice to be able to pick and choose if i do need to travel light or grab and go ......

i may be going off fishing tomorrow(didn't happen work stopped play) but its one of those situations where I'm not 100% sure if i will be able to go tomorrow or not till later , so i have a bag ready and its stocked for the venue i may be going to it includes
a box of tallywackers a few subbugs and some lightnings , a finsport full of leftys , thundercreeks and some flashy stuff and also a few bucktail baitfish ,
2 reels one loaded with a fast sink line and one with a slow intermediate

a box of fast food , i could really get away with just using this box has every fly i could ever need for the venue in question and covers a multitude of situations i may come across , this box is one of those cheap boxes from the craft store i was talking about in a previous post

the large finsport brother ken from Vermont fly guys sent me is a very handy bit of kit and i can carry a hell of a lot of flies in it of course i take full advantage off the fact i can get hundreds of flies in it ......... fits lovely into the ruck sack as well and leaves me room for another box of flies , if i didn't take it i could fit two plastic boxes in the rucksack i am after all traveling light

also in the kit is some basic items that you really have to carry clippers hook sharpener unhooking pliers a spool of fluorocarbon for my leaders , eye protection and that's pretty much all i need , i don't take a net i haven't used a net for year i chin all the fish i catch fastest and easiest way to get a fish out unhooked photographed and released in the shortest possible time, i would however advise new people to the sport to always use a net i am very confident in handling predators i have been doing it since i was a boy so i know what I'm doing you may prefer a net the choice is yours but that's my way
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something to think about

take a look at the chart i made above with regards what colours disappear at what depths now i tend to never really fish deeper than 35 feet and have caught on all sorts of colours , I'm still a great believer in stick it past there nose school of fishing and if it looks like an easy meal then they will have it even if there not hungry makes interesting reading, watch next week as i fill my box with 1000s of blue flies with UV flash .you can sometimes go overboard if you think about things too much so ill stick too what i do thanks very much
shes got the jack
OK so not a perfect jack pike copy i like it and its a pattern that has done quite well with muskies as well the gliss and glint plus from deer creek just goes from strength to strength and the patterns you can come up with is just fantastic , its now also available in the USA through http://www.bearsden.com/ and will no doubt account for some large fish this year

if you need a step by step for tying with gliss and glint plus head on over to my YouTube channel click this link and you ll go straight to a video on a very fast way to tie a gliss fly
http://youtu.be/X7HQ7Dqx6cQ

same jack pattern but with a white belly and a thin line of gold flash through the center
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the death of ep
well that maybe a bit strong of a word but i have found myself using it less and less leaning over to other synthetics which are just as good if not better than ep especially when it comes to price , not to say I'm never going to use it again , far from it actually i think the flies will sit nicely in between other fibers i use so with that in mind i was digging through the ep drawer (yes i have a drawer full of ep fibers) and it was while i was looking for something else i came across a long forgotten 3d mullet colour which i used to tie a lot of flies up with in fact before all the new synthetics we have now that was my fly colour of choice when the going got tough this colour used to always get at least a hit or two

off course tying tecniques have changed over the years as ways of doing things have so i thought it would be a nice idea to tie up one of my favorite back in the day flies using new ideas , and the above fly is the result quite happy with that
doing it with rattles
i was sitting admiring my latest tie above i had a ping on the blackberry the sound of an email coming through the airwaves , i love the fact with modern phones i can be sitting at my desk and be able to reply to my mails almost straight away , this was the case with a mail i had from ryuunosuke in japan who mailed me as he had bought some of pike treks fly rattles and wanted to know the best way to use them for his baitfish flies (saltwater) so this is just one way of doing it there is othere which ill cover in a later blog post.
as this isn't a fly tying step by step ill skip a few of the actual tying the fly itself steps and concentrate of getting the rattle in there , firstly i placed on my 2 lengths of ep fiber to give me the length of the overall baitfish there is a little croc glue on the hook shank to give the material an anchor point i then place the rattle towards the rear of the hook (this actually gives the fly a keel effect when strip and paused) secure the rattle on with a few wraps of mono thread

cover the rattle with a quality UV epoxy like diamond hard tack free from www.deercreek.co.uk only a thin coat all the way round and then zap it for a second to seal the rattle to the hook

the rattle is now bomb proof secured to the hookshaft and materials

you can now bring back your materials to cover the rattle , this isn't hollow tie style its just folded back over the top , and a shorter section folded back under the rattle to give a profile you can see that i have used not a lot of material as you can see through it , this has no effect on the overall fly pattern less is more with ep fiber

ive added in some gold angel hair a throat of red ep fiber and a mullet colour back again only a couple of thin pieces , notice you can still see the rattle through the ep

i then whip off and finish of with a uv head , im using deercreeks new lazer diode pen for this pretty much a couple of seconds and you have a solid head

the adition of an oversized eye finishes of the fly perfect

there you have it a built in bomb proof rattle in a baitfish , of course as i said there is other ways to do do rattles ill cover a few in later blog posts .
gotta go flies to chuck pike to catch and if your out this weekend take care
mcfluffchucker
(a cave in scotland)

Gliss and glints and subbugs
Blimey check the numbers on the blog is somebody trying to tell me something what the chances of that happening ……craziness

Gliss and glint plus nails it on the baitfish

Been banging on lately about gliss and glint plus from the chaps over at www.deercreek.co.uk the reason for this is quite simple the bloody stuff is fantastic it produces when tied right a very realistic baitfish in the water when stripped and paused you get little glimmers of flash just like you see in the water when you see a little flash of a bait fish indeed a very nice material , somebody said to me one why don’t you use sf fibre , well I did for a long time until this came along sf fibre is a great material also but gliss and glint plus is a lot softer and I believe ultimately it gives a better movement in the water , of course up to you what you use this is just my favourite

Just because I wanted to I’ve done a pretty much one colour baitfish with an orange core behind the eye I’ve also added in a fluro eye from piketrek http://www.pikeflyrod.com/holographic-3d-eyes/220-3d-prismatic-eyes-silver-9mm-pack-of-80.html a fairly basic old school type eye that looks good this fly is tied on a 4/0 sakuma and comes in around 8 inch’s good sized pike snax

I’ve combined a slightly lighter belly than the back colour and I have added a clump of ep sparkle in behind the eye just to give it a little extra, a big gold eye finishes the job, I’ve also started using deercreeks uv tack free to seal the nose and that’s working great for me so versatile and of course tack free

The same tie as above tied on a 4/0 sakuma manta and around 8 inches I’ve just added a piketrek fluro eye and I’ve used a red pro maker to give an exaggerated bleeding gill you can in this picture see some of the flash in the fibre

Again same fly as above but with a perch stripe and an oversized gold eye I’ve tied this using very little material although it looks like there’s lots there’s really not and you can see your hand through it so little is used

Same again gliss and glint plus but I’ve coloured the belly a yellow with a pro maker experimenting with permanent makers can really give you some crazy looking flies give it a go

A slightly smaller 6 inch perch pattern again with gliss and glint plus and tied on a 4/0 sakuma manta and a slightly different eye to the pattern before it and again heavy use of the pro markers looks good to me

The fly above and the one below I do in a completely different way to the normal ties I do with gliss and glint plus, what I do with these is tie in a couple of long sections for the belly length then I tie in shorter sections from the eye back to around a couple of inches behind the hook, the material amount I use is just enough to get away with in fact if you look you can see the hook shaft through the material.
I then tie a longer section in behind the eye (white) to just after the hook shank, before I tie in the blue gliss and glint plus what this does is gives you a better profile on the back section without having to use a lot of material and gives a massive amount of movement in the water although a very big looking fly it weighs little more than the hook , I do keep trying to put over to people I teach that less is more with these kinds of synthetics and by using like in the pictures nothing more than a few strands you still get a fantastic looking fly that does just the same if not better than using big clumps of material , just look at the fly above you can see the hook through the material that’s what you aiming for a killer fly

*It’s arrived in the usa*
Gliss and glint plus and tack free UV now available in the u.s.a

fowkes backcountry outfitters
Address 2863 S Campbell Ave, Springfield, MO 65807
Phone +1 417.889.6548 skype +1 417.889.6548
Status Open until 18:00.
Hours Mon - Sat: 09:00 - 18:00

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A few more subbugs

Just adding a few more bug patterns to the box a yellow gold and olive with solid eyes, I love making subbugs but they do take a hellava long time to make compared to the synthetics these flies can take on average of 1 hour per fly I really do put a lot of love into these flies and a lot of thought goes into the process it’s not a case of stack em and pack em on these flies let me tell ya ,

Black and yellow is a colour I really like for pike flies here in Scotland (not sure across the pond) and I had tied this one up and was impressed with the result until I realised that I didn’t have any black bug eyes (there on order) so I had to fluff it all I did was take a great big pair of googly eyes and coloured them with a black sharpie pen, I then used a 5 min epoxy to glue the eyes into place, thing with subbugs is that it’s the eyes that give it the action combined with the buoyancy of the deerhair is what makes them tick , so googly eyes have no weight so therefore the epoxy adds the missing weight that the normal eyes give , I finished off by coating the eyes with deercreeks tack free and hit it with the laser diode to cure it and you have a bloody great looking set of eyes and another coupe of bugs are in the bag ……..
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Plenty to do this week with lots of exciting things happening (watch this space) and I may even get some fishing in as well praying to the weather gods right now

Mcfluffchucker
(a cave in Scotland)

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