The Jvice dubbing brush tool

If your in the market for a new tying vice then here’s another reason why I think the Jvice is by far one of the best vice’s on the market. I mean let’s face it, how many vices out there can boast having its own dubbing brush tool! It’s been a while coming due to business commitments but I’ve eventually got around to setting up and testing the new dubbing brush tool sent to me by Jay.…and it hasn’t disappointed. Around 6 months ago through prolonged email conversations with Jay, we discussed my raccoon bunnies and how I dubbing brush most of the fur onto my tubes and hooks purely to cut down on the weight issue. Anyway a couple of months later through the post I received the parts and instructions for putting together this nifty tool. With the instructions came an easy to follow youtube video.

All one needs to do is slide the dubbing brush tool in the slot then slide the Jvice down next to it and tighten up with the tightening latch. I have subsequently had a separate ally tube with a goose neck made purely because I like to have the vice mounted in the front so I can have the waste bag attached.

Instructions told me to also mount the wire catch that had also been sent in line with the dubbing brush tool’s spring at the opposite side of the tying board…..Simple! I attached the wire to the holding pin. Then ran the thin wire across the tying board, under the retractable clip, through the spring and over the goose neck and within an hour I had produced several dubbing brushes in a multitude of different colours of flash materials.

This is the 1st brush I made with plain gold xmas tinsel.

Here I mixed gold and green

Then a plain brown brush

And produced this fly.Sorry the images haven't come out the way I would have liked as the flash gave off to much glare.

Then I made one with silver and a smattering of red

And a plain red brush and produced this classic combo fly

I've only used flash with the new tool so far, but can't wait to start producing fur and feather dubbing brushes in the near future. Jay your the man,this is just a fantastic addition to my vice mate. Tying a traditional dubbing brush isn't the easiest technique,especially for a novice but this tool of yours has drastically improved the quality of the brushes I've made purely because I can take the time without the fear of the materials slipping out of the dubbing loop using traditional methods.

If you already have a Jvice then I advise you to order one of these tools, if you don't have one then this addition is another fantastic reason to buy one.

Fly Candy

I started off wanting to tie a typical deciever styled pattern and ended up with this in the end. White & Chartreuse chinese neck hackle feathers were used for the tail then small clumps of either white or chartreuse bucktail was added along the hook shaft.

I'm not quite sure why I added the grizzly rubber legs or the white microbarb saddles but they will give a little extra movement to the fly. A small sprig of red arctic fox was tied under its chin as well.

Under the surface

"brochet" pike in belgium from vranken martin on Vimeo.

Eumer pike tube

Eumer have started producing some fantastic spinning flies made from raccoon zonkers,similar to the raccoon bunnies I tie for fly fishing. One only has to see how well this fly moves in the water to understand why I use so much raccoon on my flies.

These are such an effective fly for me especially the tube version. This is a red/grey raccoon combo tube bunny with a spalsh of red FFF Flash thrown in.

This brown/yellow golden flash combo has been particularly effective late in the evenings

Another Grey/red raccoon bunny hybrid, this time tied with white & grizzly barbed saddle hackles.

Fly Candy

I call this "The Beast" purely because its one sick looking fly. Part predator part hybrid,I just know this fly is going to move some water. I stated by tying on 4 long black chinese cock hackles deciever style to the back pf the hook. The added a decent clump of Turqoise bucktail. Then added several grizzly microbarb saddles and some shorter turqoise saddle hackles.

Then added a clump of dark blue bucktail followed by 20 or so strands of black/blue/silver krinkle flash followed by a blue guinea fowl feather on either side. Lastly I added one more bunch of blended dark blue & turqoise bucktail and then finished of the fly with a veiled hair using light blue arctic fox tail fur.

Click images for larger veiw.

The Pike's puke

Here's a great multi species fly tied with an articulated tail called the pike's puke. What's great about this fly is the combination of different materials. I can see a couple of these being tied in different colour combo's in the weeks to come.

Torrent

During this year’s Kvarken International pike fly tournament Canada (Team Torrent) was represented by Benoit Bumuller & Pierre luc Fillion who were subsequently sponsored by company called Torrent.


I certainly had never heard of them before, but after seeing the quality clothing Benoit & Pierre Luc were wearing from Torrent I thought best that more people, especially Canadians as well as North Americans, should know about this company based in Sherbrooke, Quebec. One only has to read their PHILOSOPHIES to see this is a company that truly cares for the environment and believe that the art of fly-fishing should be deeply rooted in the respect for nature and for its creatures, and have developed a line of high performance products that are designed specifically to be in harmony with the environment.

The Dutch team had also been sponsored clothing by a well known Swedish fishing company, and although I know they had fantastic products it was evident to see that the standard and quality of the Torrent gear was in a class of its own and had the feel and design qualities one looks for in fly fishing attire. To say I was a bit envious of the hard shell jackets they donned is a bit of an understatement. They were the bollocks!

Made from Torrent-tex a light but resistant fabric, which thanks to its waterproof and breathable qualities, offers complete protection against the wildest weather. Light, but with unequalled strength, it prevents the wind from penetrating. Its stretch qualities permit a freedom of movement for the fluid motion necessary for effective fly casting.

-Good balance between breath ability (10,00m2/24h), and waterproofing (10,000 mm).
-No wind penetration.
-Light (164 g/m2), resistant (90% Nylon 40D) and stretch (10% Spandex 20D).
-Non reflecting finish.
-Natural tone colour.

also stock a wide range of male & female “Mid layer and Thermal layer” under garments as well as hard & soft shell trousers, T-shirts, caps, and well…………. most gadgets needed for a day out on the water. Click any of the links to visit their site and get yourself some quality swagger. I don’t have any to review for you, but I’m going to ask Benoit and Pierre luc to maybe write a short review for PikeFFArticles to post in the near future. Bruno, your boys did your company proud mate, tight lines.

Lastly, Benoit has recently uploaded an awesome flip book ezine for Torrent depicting their involvement in the Kvarken international pike fly tournament. It’s written in French, but full of stunning imagery that should be checked out….nice one brother!

Click HERE to visit

Musky on the fly

I rarely feature musky on the fly here on PikrFFArticles,probably because I've never fished for the species before and don't know enough about them,but I'm sure there are a lot of fellas that visit these shores that do. So here's a great 10 min Musky on the fly video to ease you into this Saturday morning.

Tools of the trade

Tools of the trade.....One can never have enough of them!

Fly Candy

Perch have become extremely active here the last week and are feeding on the large shoals of baitfish, so I rustled up several of these microbarb minnow last night in slightly varying sizes using just White bucktail, some purple UV flashaboy and some white & grizzly microbarb saddles.

Then bug-bonded some eyes on for a bit of weight for the front. Come to think of it. I suppose this would be a top crossover saltwater pattern as well.

The big eyed baitfish

A basic, yet very effective baitfish pattern that can be tweaked dependng on your preferances for materials.

Fly Candy

"The Pink Panther" feathered fur streamer. Started by adding some pink and white chinese neck hackles to the back of the hook with good intentions of tying up a deciever type fly and eventually went off in a totally different tangent altogether. I then added some white micro barb saddles then a small clump of salmon pink Flashaboy.

I then dubbing looped some pink rabbit fur then followed that with a dubbing loop of white raccoon fur.Then finished off the fly with another dubbing loop of pink rabbit fur. A real easy fly to tie and light as hell.

So close yet so far!

Site fishing for pike, is just as exciting as site fishing for big browns or another species that can be seen through the water from a distance. The sheer explosiveness these fish attack your fly with,is why I love this species so much, & I'm fortunate to be able to do a lot of this around Replot due to the clarity of the water we have here. This is partly due to no annual sediment run off from rivers and secondly the currents that flow through the island tend to keep the water exceptionally clean as well. Think its time to go fishing again!

Fly Candy

More sliders......well a white raccoon tailed slider tied much the same as the others last week.

Don't be fooled by the UV polar chenile.It serves its purpose as an attractor for the fly purely because I havent added any flash down the sides of these flies.


Early tests have been very promising....they look very much like a floating worm which is what I was aiming for in the 1st place.

spinner attractors

Heres something I picked up a couple of months ago when Rowland was out from the States. For some years now he's been using small spinner blades along his wire traces for an extra attractent and left me a couple to use. I'm always up for trying new ideas and by having the spinner mounted this way its freed me up from having to mount them to the fly itself. I feel no difference when casting although I suppose if you used much larger spinner blades it would add considerable weight to the front of the business end as well as affect the aerodynamics of your line as it looped through the air. Using the roly poly retrieve you get a constant spinning action but have found that a strip stop retrieve is equally affective as the spinner acts more like a fish in distress as it stutters then flitters before spinning again.

Fly Candy

Not sure what to call this fly really. I started by tying on a shortish length of grey raccoon zonker 100mm. Then added a small clump (pencil thickness) of assorted coloured blue/purple/gold/red flash tinsel 150mm.

Then I took a large clump of red angelhair and slid it down over and around the hook shaft and tied a couple of wraps then folded the angel hair back over itself then made secure.

I then added a clump of burnt orange arctic fox for the collar. Then a clump of mustard coloured arctic fox fur, and then a clump of brown. The chin is a small sprig of red arctic fox fur.

Eyes

Richard over at "Custom pike/saltwater flies" kindly sent me a large batch of assorted eyes a couple of months ago which I have been meaning to mention but I've been so bloody busy I haven'y had much time to saught them out let alone photograph. Anyway I managed a few hours this weekend to do just that. I have 15 sets of different coloured eyes in a variety of sizes which I will be selling in my Balticpikeflies.com shop in the coming days. The great thing about this offer is each bag will have 4 eyes from each batch giving you the option of being able to match the eyes to the colour of fly you have tied. Bags will cost €3,80 and will be on a 1st come 1st serve basis.....well until I aquire another batch from him.

Green 5mm

Red/silver 5mm

Red/Orange oval

Green long

Green/silver 10mm

Yellow/silver 15mm

Red long

Red/silver oval

Orange long

Translucent blue/green 10mm

Orange/white 10mm

pink/silver 8mm

pink/silver 5mm

Richard also sent me some samples of some new truly realistic eyes in 5,8 & 10 mm diameters in a range od colours from gold,green and reddish. I have to say that these are probably the most realistic eyes you will ever come across. If you want some then drop Richard a line over at his blog.



He also has some fantastic fly tying equipment on offer ie: scissors and some wonderful bucktail stackers as well. It might take me a while before I manage to upload all these eyes into the shop so if your interested then drop me a line or get hold of Richard as well.