Bad ass musky flies

This ones tied in Chartreuse and black Schlappen, bucktail,microbarb saddles,chartreuse fine fluoro tinsel & 3 green grizzly microbarb saddles. Total length 13" inches.


The next batch I'm tying up I'll be combining those synthetic microbarb extentions I aquired last year from Greg Bekker white water flies with an old friend. At 16" inches long you can expect things to get out of hand with regards to length, and am going to working on improving my Replot slug designs which I think the extentions would work well with.


Well I'm off to the harbour to catch the low tide and hit the sandbanks for a couple of hours. Have a good day all!

Fly Candy - Musky madness

Back on the Musky war path with this 16" inche monstrocity. The tandem stinger tail is a combination of Black and brown schlappen, Tan bucktail and 3 extra long brown microbarb saddles. With the main body I used black and brown chinese cock hackles,tan bucktail,several shorter brown and tan microbarb saddles and 5 long strands of wide gold hologtaphic tinsel. Gave it a decent colar of Elk hair then finished it off with a large spun deer hair head.

For all you detractors out there,especially musky fly fisherman that think these kind of flies are just too over the top to catch fish, then here's a great short video from Thomas Guyard from "Fish addict team" blog based out in Quebec with a superb 40" musky using a fly based on this double tandem rig system which can be seen directly after this video on his blog. Whats even more impressive is that this is his first full year fly fishing for Musky. Awesome Thomas,really chuffed for you mate!

Fly Candy

So I've taken the woolheads a step further in their construction by adding a tandem trailing rig to the fly. I started by tying on five yellow/olive grizzly schlappen feathers facing inwards to an up turned Tiemco 811s 3/0 hook. Then added a clump of long reindeer fur. Tied on several strands of peacock FFF Flash then a small clump of yellow then olive bucktail.

Attached that to the main hook and then added a single yellow/olive schlappen splayed outwards followed by a clump of yellow then olive then cream bucktail.

For the head I first added a tapered clump of two inch olive artificial wool followed by some brown. Added several more strands of the peacock FFF Flash follwed by alternate inch clumps of Olive & brown A/Wool up to the hook eye. Trimmed the head into the shape of a pikes.Stuck a couple of eyes on and then Bugbonded the whole area.

I've been very pleased with how this looks and swims in the water. Total length 180mm

Fly Candy - Musky madness

Arrived back from Stockholm yesterday tired, worn out and sporting a nasty stomach bug but more on the show later in the week. This is another Replot stinger mack (II) tied in turquoise and white this time, and was snapped up at the show rather quickly.

White and turqoise sclappen were tied on splayed outwards along both the trailing hook and main body hook. Then some cheap ass dark blue Xmas tinsel was added followed by some white then turqoise raccoon fur dubbing loop brushed around the hook shaft to the front near the hook eye.

Total length 26cm - 10" inches and super light. Rather small in comparison to some of the beasts I tied at the show around 34cm - 14" inches which unfortunately I didn't manage to take images of except for one as they got snapped up as soon as they fell off the vise.

What has struck me over the last 4 weeks is that so many pike and musky fly fisherman from around the globe have this pre concieved idea that the bigger the fly they use,the bigger the fish it will attract. Yet so many big fish are caught on extremely small flies.Only this weekend I heard a great story from Johan Klingberg on Saturday evening where he was fishing one of his favourite small streams for trout and caught a 126cm pike with a nymph with a 5wt rod.....Go figure!

Fly Candy

Firstly, happy new year to all. I gather most of you are sporting some form of a hangover like myself. Tied up this last night while mullering through 2 bottles of red wine. I found some awesome speckled white fine plastic xmas tinsel 3 weeks ago from one of the shops here in Vaasa which has featured in a couple of these tandem rigs lately. Decided it needed to be used extensively on a fly so this is what I came up with.

I made four wired dubbing brushes on my Jayvice with the stuff earlier in the day.Two were wrapped around the trailing hook with some white bucktail while the other two were wrapped around the main hook also with just white bucktail and a couple of large grizzly microbarb saddles. A small sprig of red arctic fox was added for the gills.

Total length 200mm.

Tandem rigs

Rich Strolis calls these kind of flies articulated. I like to use the term tandem or double hooked rigs. Over the last 5 yrs I've experimented with numerous different types and have found this method work best with the designed flies I tie as it gives a more realistic swimming action through the retrieve.

First run a 5mm length of your cotton along the hook shank to the bend of the hook. Then cut yourself a length of flexible wire 65mm (2,5 inches) I used Visions 35lb wireline here. Place the wire directly ontop of the hook shank and tie on with your cotton up to your start off point.Add a dab of head cement.

Then cut a small piece of flexable plastic tube 25mm (1 inch) long and slide down over the wire so it butts up against the bend of the hook. This tube acts not only as an extra protectant for the wire but gives the trailing hook more regidity when casting these kind of flies yet allows for just enough sideways swimming action under the water.

Slide the wire through the hook eye of your trailing hook (Tail). you can either have the hook point facing down or up but I like to have the hook point facing upwards on all these kind of flies as it eradicates any unwanted snag ups through the toungue. Then slide the open end of the wire back through the tube making sure the tandem hook is just loose enough for movement and that the plastic tube is butted up sufficiently against the main hook and then tie directly onto the top of the hook shank again and add another blob of head cement.

This is the completed fly with the tail I used in the tutorial. Some fine white speckled Xmas tinsel was used between black bucktail to give this fly optimum movement with a lot of volume and weighs practically nothing. I added a small collar of black raccoon and bug-bonded a couple of eyes on. Total length 220mm. Click images for larger view!