Wednesday 2 November 2011

The Sandford Bullet... bite on that!


My dear friend Chris Sandford designed the much vaunted "Bullet" in his sleep... how many of us design things in our sleep? Sleep is a time for recharging the batteries but so often I wake at night thinking "Ah!" Little wonder then that Chris designed such a catcher as this... so what does it represent?
FISH FOOD was the answer from one of Chris's chums...

A step by step can be found on the website of Chris Reeves... Chris R actually introduced me to Chris S. The link for the step by step can be found here on Chris's website... I spoke to Chris Reeves yesterday and if you aren't up to tying the fly yourself then he'll gladly take an order on... in fact he'll tie up pretty much what you want from trout to saltwater!

If you look closely at the fly that Chris Sandford kindly tied for me at the Burton Fly Fair you'll see that Bug-Bond has been applied to the head... just enough to ensure that the fly lasts more than just a couple of fish. That's Chris's addition since designing the fly and compiling the step by step.

Back to the "Bullet"... I have ordered all the component parts and will be having a go myself... but WHY? Well the "Why?" revolves around a need to tie something other than pike and saltwater flies... like a child I'm increasing my vocabulary! It also has something to do with the fact that I'm looking for a new water... a dictate from the bailiffs at my local water is that all pike under 7lb have to be killed. It is something I can't get to grips with... the pike is a great adversary "Mr Nasty" of the fish world... but I love them too much. Its OK to take the odd fish for the table but undertaking fishery management with no science behind it I find abhorrent... with roach being regularly caught at over 2lbs the pike are hardly having a major impact.

So... Have rod will travel!

2 comments:

e.m.b. said...

So many "Chris's"!!! Great looking fly, I will have to give it a go myself...I've been tying a lot with CDC lately, so it'll be a great fit for what's currently spread helter skelter on my desk. ;)

David Edwards said...

Erin... I have a bunch of CDC from Marc Petitjean when I met up with him last year... not much call for CDC on pike flies... but maybe broadening my horizons should be order of the day... think it could be good carp food as well!