Fly Candy

Autumn's in full swing,plant life is dying out and water conditions are getting murky. Time to bring out the flash brigade for the next month and a half!

Readers fish porn

Regular visitor to these shores Dmitry sent me a batch of images a while back with some of his own fish porn caught with some Baltic pike flies.

Mark out in the States who's been fishing wth my flyzilla Musky madness range of flies bagged this 45" inch Musky a while back. Thanks for these lads,muchos muchos!

Fly Candy - Musky madness

Flyzilla's - "The Manta rat" This one is slightly different from the last in that the tailing tandem tail is a combination of steelhead silver and Mullet brown mirror image,several mixed white & grizzly micro barb saddles and a wide spun deerhair head.

The main body is a combination of tan brown bucktail, Natural deer hair, two primary (roadkill) seagull feathers. Silver mylar unravelled,white microbarbs, a tightly packed large spun deerhair head, brown foam helmet and cream floss whiskers.

Total length 14" inches

The "NEW" Professional BugBond torch

BUGBOND professional is a new single emitter UV light that will appeal to the fly-tying fanatic, semi commercial & commercial tier. It’s possibly the sleekest, smartest, smallest & cheapest to run, UV light for curing resin on the market available. It utilises a Cree single UV emitter that provides consistent curing. It uses a single AA battery but It works equally well with alkaline batteries, NiMH rechargeable batteries also. What I love about this torch is that it weighs a measly 74g compared to the discontinued Night searcher torch at 152g. Another simple addition to this torch is the handy strap that is attached. Not having to place the torch down on the bench while you apply the resin is a god sent.

If you've never used a UV cured resin on your flies then you don't know what you are missing. Bugbond's closest rival is an American product called CCG - Clear cure goo, & although I truly do respect all you patriotic chaps in the States using a home grown product, there really is no comparisson between the two. You might say "well it's a little bit more expensive than CCG" but the reason for this is because it's a better product.....FULL STOP!!! It cures quicker with absolutely "NO" tack what so ever. It comes in "Lite" or "Original" 20ml bottles with revolutionary applicator caps which I see many of bugbonds rivals are now copying with their own products. If your from Europe then get over to the Bugbond site to order yourself up a kit. If your in the States then get hold of Greg Becker at "White water flies" who stocks it his shop.

Fly Candy - Musky madness

This is a combination of brown schlappen,Olive/yellow grizzly schlappen,grizzly microbarbs,reindeer fur,Elk fur and deerhair. Total length 14" inches from nose to tail.

Keep an eye out this week for the new Bugbond torch, latex gloves, readers fish and fly porn,fly swaps,more fly Candy and the overdue bendback high tie tutorial.

Mirror mirror!

So its not a monster and it didn't turn out to be the Carp slam I was hoping for but I can't tell you truly how stoked I am with this fish.In fact I'd go as far as to say that this little mirror carp is probably the most significant fish I have caught in the last two seasons and is my 1st Mirror carp on the fly ever as well as here in Finland. Weather conditions were awful, 8'c temps and persistant rain fishing in a year and a half old man made pond with very little plant life let alone insect life made fishing extremely hard yet enjoyable. In total our club caught 33 common and mirror carp which were relocated to a larger lake for breeding purposes. I tried all the flies I'd tied, as I was certain that the bread ,boillie and dog biscuit imitations would do the trick but with water temps low they just didn't feed off the surface no matter what I threw at them. I eventually caught this one on the top red fly from the last post. I did loose two others during the day but was so stoked once I'd caught this one that I spent the rest of the afternoon in total euphoria. In short, well worth the 360km round trip for this awesome little fish.

Carp slam!

I'm off on Saturday up to Kokkola with my club (www.specimin.fi) to a private pond to hopefully slam some Carp so I've had to tie up a small range of Carp candy for the occassion. This has been something I've wanted to do here for some yrs now but just haven't had the chance due to other commitments and the wide distributuon of these fish that are generally stocked in privately owned lakes and ponds. God knows whether I'll catch any with this selection of patterns,although they are recognised carp candy from reputable carp fisherman. Now that I'm in with the right crowd, I'll be fishing for carp twice a month from next season, so It looks like I'm going to have to order me up some proper ammunition from my mate JP at ROUGHFISHER.COM
what makes this so special is that nobody targets carp here on the fly so I "might" be the first chap in Finland to catch one using this method. Its a big ask so we'll just have to see. Hopefully I can bag one or two!!

The Replot stinger

Looking at my stats so far for this season, my Replot stinger has accounted for 457 pike. The Chartreuse/white and Pink/white models have been the most productive colour combo's. Cheers Juha for loading this up onto our club site!

Rudolf reines supreme!

Remember those three reindeer fur flies I tied up a few months ago. Well Jeff Faulkner over at "Flyfishjeff blog" said they would be good for Striper so I sent them out to him to see how they would fare.

Looks like they didn't dissapoint after all! Thanks for the images Jeff.

Bucket mouth!

Fly Candy - Musky madness

Been involved in some great fly swaps recently on facebook and this is one of them, destined for a chap in Germany. Its a down sized version of the flyzilla series and is only 9" inchs long.
The only criteria was that I must tie a fly that I found extremely hard to part with and I have to admit I'm a bit bummed to see this leave the house.

I'm a bit excited as I came across some 18" inch artificial grizzly barbed synthetic hair extensions last night on facebook through a contact and he's going to be sending 10 packets over for me to tie some truly monstous flies with. I'm thinking 25" inch baby's for starters.

Fly Candy - Musky madness

Called this Flyzilla the "Phantom Menace". The tail is a combination of white schlappen,grey bucktail,3 long wide grizzly microbarbs,A 6" inch length of silver mylar tubing unravelled and a grey spun deerhair head with a section of foam epoxied to the top to give the fly extra buoyancy.



With the main body I followed the same tying recipe but added a couple of clumps of reindeer hair around the hook shank. Total length 15" inches.

pike on the fly in Montana

Man I could spend all day doing just that with a small mouse catching hungry little jacks.

Popovic's spread fly baitfish

Great little fly that needed to be added to the video fly tying section of this blog. If your new to these shores then use the Orange/Olive LABEL CLOUD on the left side of the site to locate questions you might need answering on the sport. For fly inspiration click "Baltic pike flies" or "Musky flies", tying tutorials then click "Video fly tying tutorials" or "fly tying tutorials" there's over 100 to get stuck into.

Fly Candy - Musky madness

Flyzilla (III) - "The Bengal tiger". Total length 16" inches. The tail is a combination of long Orange chinese cock saddles,black bucktail, 8 short hot orange grizzly micro barb saddles,a 6" inch length of unravelled gold mylar tubing and a tightly packed spun deerhair head.


The main body is much the same materials except the mylar is 8"inches long. I added a collar of long Orange bucktail. then two sections of tightly packed spundeer hair then a thick clump of orange arctic fox splayed out and slid down the hook shaft and butted up againt the spun deerhair. Then five short hot orange grizzly microbarbs saddles,two more black packs of deer hair and a single packing of orange bucktail.

Fly Candy - Musky madness

Flyzilla (II) - "The Grim Reaper" This was a fun fly to construct. The stinger tail is practically an all black affair with black microbarb saddles, black chicken feathers,some thick holographic tinsel and a 4" inch length of silver mylar tubing unravelled with a tightly packed black spun deer head.

The main body, is again much the same as the tail exept I added a couple of long grizzly microbarb saddles and then followed that with an 8 inch length of silver mylar tubing around the body before adding a collar of black bucktail,several short white microbarb saddles and a tightly packed spun deerhair head. Then finished off the fly with shaped piece of foam to give it bouyancy.

Man I took this out for a swim the other day & was blown away with how well the beast not only pushed water but pulsed and glimmerd with the silver mylar tubing around it. The only problem with these flies is that its so hard to part with them once I've finished one. Mark, thanks for leaving such positive words regarding these flies in the previous flies comments section mate.