Sunday, June 17, 2012

Making a fiber brush for Brush flies

It is nice to have one of the fancy dubbing brush tools that you get now a days, but if you don't want to spend big bucks on it then there is a simple and cheap way to do it. This is  how I currently make mine and it works well enough for me.

All you need is a blackboard pin, some wire, your chosen fibers (in this case SYN Fiber) and a sturdy dubbing twister.


First stick your blackboard pin into a piece of wood or as I did into my table top. Twist the end of your wire around the pin and roll the wire out flat on top of the table. You can make your wire brush as long as you like.


Cut your fibers in the length that you want and start placing you fibers on top of the wire. In this case I have placed the end of the fibers  close to the edge of the wire, but you can place it in the middle or any way you want it depending on how you want your brush to look.



Carry on doing this until you have reached the length that you want. You can add different colours as you go along. Try to keep the fibers fairly spares and make sure that you spread them out over the wire to avoid and clumps when you spin the brush.



Once you have placed all your fibers on the wire take the end and hook it over your dubbing twister. Fold the wire back over the fibers so that the fibers are sandwiched between the wire. Twist the wire around your blackboard pin again to secure it. At this point keep tension on the wire by slightly pulling on the dubbing twister.



While keeping tension on the wire start to slowly twist the wire by spinning the dubbing twister. As the wire start to twist around itself lift the dubbing brush up so that it can spin freely in the air.



Keep on spinning the brush


Occasionally you would need to use a dubbing needle to loosen any trapped fibers as you go along. Keep on spinning the brush until  you feel that the fibers are secured enough and wont be able to come loose.


 At this point you can use a barbers hair comb to comb out the hair and to loosen any more trapped fibers. Use a wire cutter to cut the ends of the wire and you are done.


Finished brush


To use the brush simply fold the fibers to one side and tie it onto your hooks shank and twist it around stroking the fibers to the back as you go along.


The fly below was tied using the dubbing brush I just made.



Saturday, June 2, 2012

Bob Popovics new Fleye Foils

I recently received some of the new Fleye Foils by Bob Popovic. Today was the first time that I got some time to try them out. They certainly make tying Surf Candies easy and they look great to boost.

My fisrst Surf Candy with Fleye Foils and SYN Fibres


The Fleye Foils is available in three shapes (Bay Anchovy, Sand Eel and Silverside) with each in different sizes.

Bay Anchovy

Sand Eel

Silverside

Check out the video below from the master himself.





Sunday, April 15, 2012

Minnow patterns

Today was the turn of some minnow patterns. I received these sample packs of material quite a while ago and have never used it. It is quite similar to EP Fibres and works perfectly for these flies. It creates an awsome profile for baitfish.







Thursday, April 12, 2012

More Salty Flies

I am still on my mission to fill up my Satwater flybox before our long awaited holiday next week. Cannot remember when last I have sat down and tied so many flies in one go. Luckily these are fairly easy to tie.Today I tied up some crease flies. Hope the fish likes them.




Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Some Salty Flies

Things have been very quiet on here lately. Our streams have been very low and with high temperatures it just was not worth it to venture out. In the last two month I have only gone fishing once and that day turned out in a blank. At least I am now officially on leave for the next few weeks and with our traditional Easter weekend rain things are looking better. I have a date with a small stream tomorrow so let's hope I can get some fish.

In the meantime I have been filling up my salt water fly boxes in anticipation for a week-long trip that the missus and I is going on next week. Today I cranked out a couple of clousers and while getting bored from tying the same thing over and over I also started playing around and came up with the below fly. Going to tie up a few more in some different colour combinations and hope that the fish like them.



Below is some of the Clouser's I cranked out today.



Sunday, February 26, 2012

CDC and Elk Variation

This is one of my favorite and most productive small stream flies. It is basically just the standard CDC and Elk fly, but I use a dark deer hair instead of the normal bleached elk hair and add a bright post and some flash to the fly. 


MATERIALS

BODY: CDC
WING: Deer Hair


Sunday, February 19, 2012

Monday, February 13, 2012

Tubeology Baitfish

This is another quick Tubeology baitfish. The hard part is deciding which head to use.


One fly three different heads


Jumping Trout

The below is some incredible photos of baby trout leaping out of the water to catch insects. Wildlife photographer Kim Taylor trained the fish in his studio to leap after bugs that he dangled above them. Once he got it right he took these pictures of them and then combined it with background photos of rivers and streams. The photos might be manipulated but they are still incredible.


Read the original story in the Daily Mail.


See more of Kim Taylor's pictures.



Sunday, February 12, 2012

A Mayfly imitation


This is a little  mayfly that I have been tying to imitate the black Mayflies that hatch on our rivers. They are tied on a Dohiku dry fly hook, have a body made from Hends body Quill in black with a  yellow rib. Both flies as below has a wing of Snowshoe rabbit fur, but the bottom one has some additional black hackle around the wing and the wing is a bit thinner. Both also have some CDC dubbing around the thorax.

 A more detailed pic of the second fly.

An extended body version

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Tubeology

Received my stock of Tubeology kits today. Got me in the mood to tie a fly despite the muggy weather. This is the first one of the vice. I will do a full review on these kits soon, just need to play around with it a bit.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Still here!!!

Things have been awfully quite here on the blog lately. With high temperatures and low rivers I haven't been doing any fishing at all. Even the nights have been freakishly warm so I haven't tied much either.

This is just a post to let you all know (or the 2 of you that emailed me and actually check in from time to time) that I am still here. For your dedication I have added three poorly Photoshopped photo's from my last trip in December 2010.

Hopefully I will be able to share something meaningful with you soon.





Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Thanks Jeff

I while back I received a mail from fellow blogger Jeff over at Fly Fishing & Tying Obsessed that he wanted to send me some off his poppers and a few other flies. Well the flies arrived just a day before Christmas and they are exquisite. Jeff obviously put a lot of care in making these and the poppers especially looks to good to be fished.  I previously made a post of some poppers that I tied based on Jeff's flies but the real thing put my creations to shame.

All the flies Jeff send me

If you haven't done so already head on over to Jeff's blog and check it out. I know he also sells these flies and believe me it is well worth the money. Hopefully I will be able to test these out within the next few weeks and report back, though I know all of them will catch fish.






Monocacy Bumble Bee

Roadkill

Thanks for your generosity Jeff. As soon as I get my lazy but into gear again I will tie you some tiny trout flies to try.