back in the cave

holy mother of god

ok so this is not fly caught but its such an awesome creature i just had to share this record breaking fish ive caught these fish to mid 20s in the Persian gulf so i know how hard they fight, truly an amazing predator thanks to international fishing news for the story 

Canadian angler Christian Loranger was trolling along the sharp drop-offs surrounding Christmas Island on September 23, 2012, when his musky plug was inhaled by a massive fish that tested both his tackle and wits for nearly two hours. A 39.55 kg (87 lb 3 oz) great barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda), and potential new All-Tackle record, was the result of Loranger’s two hour battle. The current IGFA record for this toothy species stands at 38.55 kg (85 lb 0 oz).

THE PIKESABER STRIKES BACK

ok so ive had these rods for nearly 3 years now and ive still to be convinced to change to it something else , you know i got slatted by another pike blog at the it time a mr know it all who said basically how can you tell what its like and give it a glowing review after using just a few times well heres the original review this http://mcfluffchucker.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/pikesaber-review.html

now i went on after the ice had melted to catch a shed load of fish on it (he must off missed those blog posts) and to this day its still going great , now the thing is im not mr technical im not going to give you a load of garbage about how the rod is made from the latest award winning material found on mars or the fact that it has a snazzy name and is a flys ball weight lighter than the model they put out 3 weeks ago , no thats not what im about i use what i like and if it aint broken well it dont need fixed .

ive been doing this long enough to know a good product i knew as soon as i got it out the tube and i still stand by that original review and the fact that im still using the things a little over 3 years later should speak volumes and below is a couple of very well known faces who also use them 

legendary muskie hunter and record holder brad bohen from http://www.muskycountryoutfitters.com uses them and features in his dvd 

vermont legendary guide drew price (yes he was on the telly with jeremy wade) also praises them highly heres his review http://dponthefly.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/pike-saber.html

 and course the man with the green skin vermont fly guys legend ken capsey never goes out 

on the big lake without his .

but you know its all down to personal choice what one guy likes another may not but im still loving it hey if you don't dig it that's cool but at least give it a try and don't knock a product till you've tried it ...........

life goes on 

ive had a real clusterfeck of a week this week to be honest im heading to turkey soon on a family holiday and my wife insisted i take a couple of fly rods ( how cool is she) i have already scoped out every bit of info i can find about the place im going so im looking to some mini species on the 3wgt ......but i digress somewhat 

my planned trip this week was scuppered due to my son not having the correct birth certificate for his first passport so i had to get the first appointment i could which was at 4.50pm the day before my wife had to go through to the passport office in Glasgow on the Friday to hand in the documents we got it done and the wife and kids should have them next week and if they don't well hell im still going fishing ..........(the saga of the documentation has been shortened greatly but it was somewhat stressful)

a massive shout out goes out to my boat partner the destroyer 

for being so cool about the whole thing next week pal

a little time on my hands

hit the vice for a couple of hours in between visits to various government offices of course so heres what came out of the cave 

small 3 inch bucktail baitfish with deercreeks new eyes epoxied heads , a very simple little fly but really quite devestating this one in a classic red / white combo with a little flash on the sides or top

and another favorite off mine an olive green with just a couple of chartreuse bucktail in the middle and a white belly topped with a lateral line of gold magnum flashbou , deadly and will catch anything that swims in fresh or salt water ........i feel a video coming on 

stop press

*today the 10th june i took up some red and white samples to a friend of mine and bugger me he sent me a text saying he tried one and caught 5 pike and 2 trout in 20 mins one of the fish took it as it hit the surface ...............well id call that a result 

i also had time to start getting a customer order together for his trip to lake of the woods for muskies, all he wants is topwater stuff more than happy to oblige on that one subbugs can take a while to make but i always get an immense hell yea feeling when ive done one they just rock , this one is 9 inchs of fast food for greens 

the head is really wheres it at with subbugs and the use of epoxy and heavy eyes is what give it the deadly action it has 

of course you really need a good pair of very sharp scissors to trim the heads , there are folks that use razor blades for trimming hair in fact i once bought a stonefly hair trimmer its was a curved bit of plastic that the blade fits into better than slicing your fingers open , myself i prefer to use scissors i find i have better control over the cut , but i think the blade would be really great for trout muddlers 

of course i do use blades as i have done for this monster muskie topwater fly you just cant cut big foam heads with scissors so i use a Stanley knife blade gets a good clean straight cut this fly really im going to do some smaller versions for pike soon these are killer

and an orange and yellow version with some gliss and glint in the back body , these flies are quite long at nine inches plus the material uses the action of the popper head to give the body a swaying motion and the back end witch also sink slowly when stopped a really great "action"fly 

you looking at me 

back in the cave and churning em out life is starting to get back to normal now and ive a few trips planned and projects on the go and im getting reports that one of my favorite saltwater spots is starting to produce so things are looking up could it be that summer is finally here .

big bad topwater musky annoyers job done 

a small review

ive seen advertised around lately dyed tip buckltail so i broke open my wife's credit card and ordered a couple just to see basically what they were like and they came in at a couple of pounds more expensive that normal bucktail , but the bucktail is actually really good quality so i didn't mind so much , im into small bucktail baitfish at the moment so i whipped up a couple of my favorites at the min , these are tied on 2/0 dai reki hooks

no heres the thing is it worth the extra money well actually no its not because although its a nice idea you could actually achieve the same thing with a permanent marker and the one thing i really didn't like was after i got it wet for the picture above the red stained my kitchen work top so id imagine it would do the same to a fly box or flies that were leaning against it in the box , not sure what the problem is but ill be keeping them well separate from other flies probably the last time ill buy it i think in future ill use permanent marker as this i know dosnt bleed .............

the musky wall of death

right the musky wall  is filling up nicely , i have a rather large order to do so id better get on with it ....later folks

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in scotland)

tumbleweed

page views last month  9,329 thanks folks 

LIFE IN FLUFF

nice to see some fish starting to be caught including this fine example from brother ken from Vermont fly guys. nice work 

i however have been nowhere near water or even the sniff of a fish lately , in between family matters fly orders and bloody awful weather on the days me and the destroyer were supposed to be out has pretty much killed it lately it has to said the weather this year so far has been for me the most bizarre ive ever seen but hopefully things seem to be settling out now so fingers crossed it stays that way , well at least on the days me and the destroyer are fishing 

so when theres an extened downtime it dosnt go to waste as i end up back on the vice filling boxes that are full to bursting allready but you can never have to many so heres what up

fried alive made with some waste ep and a back of copper flash angel hair

 tied on 2/0 hooks these little flies are just starting to become the go too flies in my box i mean if you'd told me a few years ago that small 2 and 3 inch flies would be the killer pattern for pike i would have laughed but seriously if you haven't tried smaller flies for pike you really should

another fried alive tied on a 2/0 with ep fiber and mixed with copper flash and tipped with deercreeks awesome gator eyes no better on the market eye wise 

another mixed with green ep flash , i like mixing ep flash into fibers but at 6 quid a pack aint the cheapest way of doing it , sooner or later ill come across a product that matches it for half the price and don't worry ill let you in on it when i find it , i really think these backs should be around £4.00 a pack which would be a lot fairer i think , i mean even ep fibers are creeping up to stoopid process in fact i haven't bought any for a while as ive been mostly been on the gliss and glint plus as its cheaper and has built in flash check it out

still playing with fisheadz from deercreek there putting out some great new heads check the website for details , ive just about (after a few failed attempts ) got he tying right on these and got them looking great as in the water thanks to another deercreek pro team member who uses a material in a way id never think to use or to even use feathers id been using bucktail but more on that another time ...........

ive also been on a natural materials kick lately as well i mean that's what i started off on all those years ago so its really nice to get back to it and to be honest there so bloody effective as well , sometime we do tend to lose sight on older materials as new materials come along , ive got so much bloody stuff in drawers and boxes sometimes i come across a material by accident and think "oh very cool i could make well you know the score" so good to revisit some old school tying methods now and again 

alien creatures 

well not so much from another planet , these are designed for perch and have lots of vibration and movement these are tied on some really cool streamer hooks that brother ken sent me a while ago look forward to using these 

more like a wolly bugger with legs but im sure it will work of course knowing my luck ill fish these on the 7wgt for perch and end up up having a big double on them aint that just the way in fishing , but im determined to get a perch this year ......... 

so i was just about to wrap the blog up last week when i had a packet arrive and it contained some awesome new eyes from www.deercreek.co.uk and here what i came up with 

using gliss and glint plus and the new eyes i think i came up with some killer patterns 

just check those sexy eyes i mean there's just so much you could do with these and ive really only just scratched the surface with these watch this space 

ive seen some crazy assed fly fishing videos before and to be honest i thought id seen everything until i saw the video of brian brice from vermont fly guys on an ironing board playing a rather large carp on a fly rod crazy arsed rednecks lol good job friend haven't laughed that much in ages i thought it was going to tow you clear to Scotland 

                               

i smell the fear fish were comin for ya 

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in Scotland)

the way the wind blows

The way the wind blows

I had a long anticipated trip planned with the destroyer today so at the start of the week I had to catch up on a few things dig some tackle out look for missing stuff and it was while I was digging around looking for some braided leader loops in funky olive from pike trek that id ordered the week before and on arrival id but them into that special place that I put things so I wont mislay them and then promptly forget where the special place is , it was while I was looking for the loops I found a box of clouser flies I forgot I had (still no sign of the leaders)

FRIED ALIVE O

I also had to make up a few new variations on the fried alive flies so spent a few hours on that project and came up with a few new colours that I dig , trouble with the fried alives is they work so well I always end giving them away so always need to keep stocking the box up 

the box unlike the above picture is now pretty much full with lots of lovely new fried alive patterns , so with that in the bag my next job was some flies heading to the usa 

id pretty much got caught up on all the stuff I needed to do so I had time to play with some new materials

---------

at last years bffi I had the pleasure of meeting bob and sue from castle feathers who were on the stall next to deercreek , I had noticed that they had some cool looking flashy materials that were pretty much aimed at the trout fisher , I looked at a few of the colours and thought I could do some cool pike patterns with the materials so ive been playing over the year with a few ideas and have settled on a way to make them fairly easily but still have a full bodied looking baitfish im loving them

its been quite a long process getting these together as I had quite a few combinations to go through colour wise and many different ways of tying them 

the end result though is awesome and im very happy with the builds , im planning on doing a video for these next week so stay tuned , if however you want to get hold of some of the materials check castlefeathers out on ebay or catch them at the bffi where they will have a full range of colours with them...........

PLAYING WITH MOTHER NATURE

anybody who knows me will be well aware of the fact that I have actually quite a lot of flies , in-fact I probably have more flies than ill ever use in a lifetime and I do rotate flies from my store to my boxes and it can actually be a pain in the butt when im on the water and need a specific patterns , so the day before me and the destroyer headed out I decided on a big shake up of my boxes and try and get them in some kind of workable order.

I decided to split them into 3 major category’s for the flies I use gliss and glint plus flies , e.p fibre flies and natural materials , this pretty much covers it although I did sort out a few other boxes topwater , and fried alive have there own boxes so I can chop and change as I want although the fried alive boxes pretty much go everywhere with me and I also have a few smaller saltwater fly boxes with sandeel and small clouser patterns . I managed to get all the boxes sorted out and I wrote on top and on the side of each one what was in the box I.e gliss , ep , etc and stacked them away in the box and it should make finding things a lot easier .

Locked and loaded everything in its place and the inside lid has all the flies I use the most which of course begs the question why take so many flies fishing , well actually thats a good question because if I go on a quick trip or im wading I can get away with only using a couple of fly patterns and not worry about it , I guess its just boys and there toys and as fly tiers we just love to see how stuff works in the water and how it looks in fact I think the next fine day we have and I find myself at home im going to get all the flies out and just see how many of the bloody things I have , I think I may be in for a shock

AYE AYE CAPT DOUGHNUT

so having been capt of the good ship doughnut last year and shown the destroyer all the hotspots we agreed he would be capt this year which he was happy doing , so with the weather checked and to be honest it wasn’t the best forecast but with the way the wind was blowing we could get up into the bay and get shelter and actually it wouldn’t be to bad at all 

so with gear stowed away and rods ready for action we set off on the good ship windy , we decided not to head right across the loch but to creep around the side and stay out the worst of the wave

at least I wasn’t going to be cold , it may not look it but there was a fair wind blowing down the loch and that was not what the weather forecast had said just hours earlier mmmmm slightly worrying but we decided that we would go take a look 

the destroyer was more confident in his new role as head pirate despite the ominous dark clouds and increasing wind 

as we passed a favourite spot the destroyer spotted a fallow deer and was quite excited about seeing it , I however was looking at it as subbug material but a welcome distraction from the growing storm and the worrying changes in wind direction .

We got up into the bay and found that although not as bad as the main loch the wind was still pushing us just a little too fast for a good drift across the bay but we stuck with it for a couple of drifts and indeed I actually had a fish on for all of five seconds and with a thunderous cheer that we had one on the fish promptly fell off the hook obviously the words I said after cant be written but im sure most of you will have used similar words ill just say I said “my my that was unfortunate my good chap and outstanding boat partner the fish seems to have gone of its finely presented breakfast”

we had a few more drifts before deciding we should head back to the harbour and pick up an anchor this would make fishing the bay slightly easier 

what we didn’t however foresee was the wind completely going nuts and howling down the loch this caused the trip in to be slightly dodgy to say the least .

As we approached parallel to the dock and turned to go into the dock entrance we realised we didn’t have enough power to make headway against the wind and wave and we started to get pushed along the bank , although this wasn’t really a major issue as we could just tie up alongside the jetty further down.

This however proved not so easy as first thought as the wind was getting stronger and the wave bigger and we could not get close enough to grab or even lasso as we were really motoring along at a rate of knots as we came to the end of the jetty I realised we were at last chance saloon as just further down the bank there was a massive tree overhanging the water and if that wouldn’t be sore enough then crashing into the dam wall the other side of it would be so without further ado I lept from the boat rope in hand and landed on a pile of rocks .

As the rope tightened in my hand the boat and the destroyer turned round and the stern was now facing into the wave , it was now just a matter of pulling the boat up the jetty and tying off which wernt that easy with the pointy end facing the wrong way let me tell ya 

safely tied up and me onshore we looked over the loch and there was howler blowing right down the loch again this was not what the forecast said but hell that’s mother nature for ya 

I asked the destroyer what he thought and he had pretty much unloaded the boat already which was a bloody shame as we were both really looking forward to today but thats fishing 

you may not think it from this picture but is was really starting to blow hard in fact the owner of the fishery came down took one look at us and said “your not going out in that are you” er nope 

we stood around for another 30 mins or so and things wernt really calming down so we headed back to the car and decided to go back to mine for some lunch and watch some fishing tv

so far its been an awful start to the year but im sure it will improve soon we can but keep trying and even a crap start to the year aint going to make me take up golf.........we will be back everything

for a reason my fellow fluffers

a picture says a thousand words

loch leven a legendary place for the trout purist, eggs and fry trout from leven trout have been transported all over the world this special breed of trout can be found as far as Argentina the biggest fish from loch leven was a fish caught many moons ago in fact 101 years ago and stood at 9lb 13oz caught by a Colonel Bob Scott that record was broken by alan campbell with a fish of 11lb plus .

I hope im not jumping the gun here as I cant find out the info but im pretty sure this fish would have been far better having its photograph taken and placed back in the water , rather than the cardboard cut out fish thats been lying in the bottom of a boat for hours for a vanity shot , I really hope this fish was unable to revived and dispatched but I fear not .luckily the wilful killing of big fish and record fish in this country is largely a thing of the past lets keep it there .

This is how it should be done 

brian price from vermont fly guys with a stunning looking vermont spotty just look at the stunning colours on this fish which was put back in the water to fight and make baby trout another day , stunning catch brian

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in scotland)