Flies for a far!

I'm off to South Africa at the end of this month for 3 months break to get out of the impending winter, so I've been tying up a load of saltwater flies and poppers to be used in the estuaries and also off the rocky groins. I'll still be posting on a daily basis, but there will be a tropical feel layed down once a week depending on where I've been fishing and for what species. I've teamed up with "Easyfly" out in France who have sponsored me a load of new kit to try out (Hardy Proax Sintrix 9" 6# & Airflo bluetooth Nantec 9" 10/11#) lines (Monic phantom WF6 F tropical and a Monic clear WF10 intermediate), reels (Airflo Airtecs) as well as other goodies. I'm going to be running a number of fly tying workshops around the country and will also be up in the Drakensberg mountains flicking 2# & 3# sticks at brook trout which I'm really looking forward to.

Fly Candy

A couple of new Popper streamers with burnt orange marabou collars and white and black slinky tails. A clients has been using these in Australia recently to catch GT's and Cuda off the flats near Cape York.


A couple of Chartreuse/Pink poppers this time with smaller popper heads mounted. The tails are a mix of grizzly varient and grizzly chartreuse schlappen feathers with pink and chartreuse marabou collars.

Saltwater poppers

While were on the subject of poppers I was asked to tie up a loada poppers for Benoits "Le Mouching blog" trip to Caledonia next month targeting big GT's & Cuda.

I first started by shaping the cork head with a dremmel tool. Then sprayed them with 4 or 5 coats of either Black, white or red spray paint. once the paint had dried I then ran a strip of glue on top and underneath then sprinkled either Red, Blue or Green fine glitter over them.Stuck a couple of eyes on, brushed away the excess then Bug-bonded each head.

Most all have a white body with maybe a splash of black thrown in. All are around 160 mm long and weigh around 4 grams each.

I started by tying on a small sprig of bucktail towards the back of the hook near the bend. Then added some FFF Tinsel depending on the colour of the head.Then added another slightly larger (Longer) sprig of white bucktail. Then added either fosfori hair or goat hair to extend the body length.

Then I added one white Marabou hairline feather and finished off the tie with some red uv polar chenille. Seeings these are for large GT's each tie in point was super glued then head cemented twice for extra durability.I don't expect them to last a lifetime but each will catch a fair amount of fish if chucked into the right places.