The Fire Tiger fly!!

Fly Candy

Tied these small 100mm bucktail baitfish up for a number of species this season around the island. Ide are moving up into the ditches here to spawn at this present moment so in a couple of weeks once they have moved back out into the bays they wont think twice about taking one of these imitations. Then during summer time they'll get a good airing as the pike & perch start to feed extensively on the large shoals of Roach, bream & whitefish fry. With the sea freezing over here in January this year compaired to last October and with such a mild winter with half the amount of snow fall from last year, much of the larger tracks of water are going to be open 3 weeks sooner than previous years which will give me opportunity to get into many of the shallower bays earlier than usual hopefully opening up the way for some sight fishing before they go into spawning mode. towards the end of April......Fingers crossed we don't get some extremely unseasonal warm weeks of weather like last Spring.

Fly Candy

Yellow & Black is another colour combination I don't use that often here around the island, yet every time I've had it in the water I've caught fish with it. The feathers are yellow and black grizzly schlappen followed by an inch of black raccoon zonker palmered around the hook shank followed by a few strands of yellow krinkle flash topped off with some yellow raccoon zonker. Total length 160mm.

Must have fly for 2012!

So I've decided that one of the hooked flies I'll be fishing with for this season has to be one of my Lazyboy's. The dilemma is, is that I just cant make my mind up what colour combination I should settle on. All four of these variations have been very productive for me over the last 7 yrs and all at different times of the year. You can never go wrong with pink/white but would more than likely be a great Spring colour combo limiting its effectability during the other two seasons.

Chartreuse/Olive would also be a good Spring choice which could also be fished during the summer months around many of the shallower reed bed areas here.

Black/Red, well probably one of those colour combination that all pike fly anglers should have in their box.....I just don't think for this season I want it on a lazyboy as I'd want to be fishing this colour combo at a slightly deeper depth and most likely at dusk & dawn with a baitfish pattern.

The there is this Chartreuse/tan/Black combination which I think would be perfect for Spring/Summer & Autumn. I am going to play around with a black or brown tail before I make my final choice.I just feel this will serve me better than brighter coloured versions for this kind of surface/sub surface fly. Man, this is becoming harder to make the right choice with each passing day!

Readers fish porn

Its aways nice to recieve positive feedback from readers that have been fishing with my flies. This top one is of Nicolas Cote from Canada with a nice snotrocket caught with one of my brown salamander gurglebugs.

And this fantastic Zander caught by Michel Van der kruijs with one of my double tandem rigs. Thanks lads for sending these in.

The Barto Minnow!

Heres a great fly tutorial called the Barto Minnow for you to try out. My only niggle is the use of Icelandic sheep hair on this fly. Yes it has great movement but is probably one of the worst materials for using on pike flies and there are some better synthetic materials out on the market that work just as good and are a hell of a lot more pike mouth friendly.Saying that though I think this fly will kick ass in the water.

Rattle n hum!

So after some considerable deliberation, I've decided to go with this Orange/Black rattle n hum as one of my hooked flies for this season. Perfect for wading, fishing in low and bright conditions & after looking back on previous years stats will be a consistant colour scheme for all areas of the island. Easy to tie, has a nice mix of materials and swims well under the water....now to find the other 11!

The Replot stinger!

Looking like my Replot stingers, you cant go wrong with a feather fur combination

Season cant come quick enough!

Not long now before the season starts for me....maybe two weeks and I'll be out chucking fluff. My clients start arriving from the 22 April so its going to be all hands on deck from then. If any of you are interested in catching the last of the Spring season, I still have a booking space open from June the 11th - 18th & A few available for the Autumn season between September - November. bookings for 2013 & 2014 seasons have already started as well.


Click the logo at the top of the page or email me for any questions you need answering.

Pike on the fly in Sweden

Heres a nice little video from Sweden....top tip! when taking pictures of your fish, try too hide your fingers under its belly when pushing the fish forward towards the camera. this will stop you having massive fingers showing up in the end image.

Flies for the new season

So I'm back on line for the forseeable future even though I still haven't got a fixed abode yet. Arrived back last week to find the owners still living in the cottage I was supposed to move into so I'm living out of a suitcase in their B&B for now. Anyway while back home in south Africa I spent some time thinking about how I was going to approch this comming season here on Replot. Being able to fish as much as I do, I really can spend the majority of my time on the water trying different leader lengths,fly designs etc etc. I want to be able to fish as simple as possible this year so I've decided to use only 12 flies altogether. 6 tube flies and 6 traditional hook flies and will be alternating each day between one another.Type/design & Colour choice for these twelve flies is going to be important yet I still want to keep things simple. I have around two weeks to finalise my fly choice and colour combos so once I've decided I'll post my finished band of misfits and the reasonings behind my choices.