The Feather Bender and BUG-BOND

I have been very fortunate to have met some truly nice folk over the last few years through BUG-BOND and many have become good friends... and a few have become great friends. One of those is Barry Ord Clarke who is undoubtedly one of the most talented fly tyers. It is not only his ability to tie flies that is impressive but his level of understanding of the materials he uses. Barry's passion as a hunter enables him to be discerning about the materials he uses. Discerning doesn't actually go far enough - it is an intimate knowledge and respect of the animal, whether beast or fowl... its not just deer hair, its whether it is a summer coat or winter coat and how that acts under the tension of the thread. It is that level of attention to detail that impresses me as to how good a fly tyer he is... now link that with his talent as one of the top professional photographers of our time (two of his photos are in the National Gallery) and you'll get to see where I'm coming from!

Barry started a blog recently called The Feather Bender it is without a shadow of a doubt one of the best blogs out there... linking great photographic skills with great fly tying. The blog is inspirational and educational... I have a certain bias as Barry is a member of the BUG-BOND team and my material does feature in a lot of his tying... The photographs do show the results can be achieved when they go under the macro lens of a professional photographer... a fly is a fly until you put it under the lens, every turn of thread that doesn't quite touch is exposed. Next time you tie a fly take a magnifying glass or loupe and inspect your creation under good light... its worth it (Do the fish notice? Maybe, maybe not but I now want my flies to look like lines of soldiers on parade... I am envious of my pals that achieve it... and this is the first step to getting there) 

Have a look at the blog and subscribe to it... I guarantee you'll not want to miss a single entry in this blog... even if it is only to inspire you to use part of a process in a creation of your own. 

Happy tying!

PS they are my photos not his :-) 

BUG-BOND "how to" on rod and line

Earlier this year Barry Ord Clarke wrote an article entitled "The Confessions of a Glue Addict" in which he gave a couple of top tips on using BUG-BOND. 

For regular followers of BUG-BOND you'll be aware that in order to prove the strength and flexibility of BUG-BOND I built a 9ft 9wt on a Harrison Advanced Rods Lohric blank with NO thread on the guides. The rod was built out in less than 2 hours and then fished. The rod was built in August 2010 and within a year of testing had caught 50 fish to 16lbs without any failure in the rod or "whippings". The rod was inspected at Harrison Advanced Rods for defects - there weren't any!

Barry has kindly allowed me to reproduce the photos from the article in which he uses BUG-BOND Lite... interestingly I used used BUG-BOND Original to build the rod.

 Locate the rod ring on the spine of the rod

 Tack the ring in place by curing with the UV light

 The ring is in place

 Now commence the whipping

Whilst rotating to get an even coat expose to the UV 

 The finished article

 Tools of the trade

Since BUG-BOND's inception its been used for braid connections on fly lines... the first real tests of this were done by Tom Gorman who used the system on his sailfish outfit in Costa Rica in early 2010. Then Barry came up with this method of welding a new loop on the end of the fly line... does it work? Well yes it does and my Scientific Anglers WF9 Pike fly line is testimony to this!

 Carefully cut the fly line at angle on one side

The stripped side

 Now place in a fly clip, coat and cure

The finished loop!

Thank you to Barry for allowing me to share these with you. Barry has a blog which you can find by clicking the link www.thefeatherbender.wordpress.com

Multiple award winning BUG-BOND providing Tack-Free cured performance since 2009

BUG-BOND sponsors Fly Tying League

BUG-BOND is sponsoring the FlyFishing & FlyTying Magazine's Fly Tying League that starts in the December issue of the magazine.

The competition is open to everyone... this is a global competition! The magazine is also available as an APP on both Apple and Android platforms.

BUG-BOND has organised the prizes and these are a BUG-BOND kit for each round winner (your choice of Original or Lite) and there is a BUG-BOND Professional UV light in the kit! Each month there is a draw for a bag of Veniard fly tying materials... and first prize will be a Tenkara outfit provided by Esoteric Tackle.

Wherever you are in the world you have to enter it... even a novice stands a chance of winning a prize!

BUG-BOND wins Innovation Award

So here we are a year on and another innovation award, this time on the top of the podium!

Yes, BUG-BOND has WON the 2012 Total Flyfisher Best Fly Fishing Innovation Award... this is an award voted for by the readers of Total Fly Fisher Magazine in their annual tackle award survey.

Thank you to the readers who voted for BUG-BOND, I appreciate your support.

BUG-BOND goes global with WAPSI

BUG-BOND ties in with WAPSI to complete global distribution.

BUG-BOND the award winning UV cured resin is set to continue its global growth as one of the world’s leading fly tying products as it becomes fully available in the USA and Canada.

Following this announcement, BUG-BOND will have the widest distribution network of any light cured resin available to fly tyers worldwide.

  ***      

                                   

David Edwards of Edwards Bonding Solutions Ltd is proud to announce that WAPSI, the largest distributor of fly tying material worldwide has included BUG-BOND in their latest catalogue. WAPSI will primarily distribute BUG-BOND to the US and Canadian markets, however, their worldwide distribution network will also benefit from the inclusion of BUG-BOND in their product range.

David Edwards, owner and creator of the BUG-BOND brand said “I am delighted that BUG-BOND has secured within the last 9 months both WAPSI & Veniard Ltd, two of the biggest and most respected distribution names in fly tying. It will ensure that BUG-BOND builds on its global brand position based on product performance and ensures worldwide availability. Veniard play an important role in BUG-BOND’s day to day logistics and worldwide distribution, their support has been key to our growth this year. With WAPSI on board we will be able to span North America building on the support we already have from key retailers on the North Eastern seaboard of the US” 

BUG-BOND is distributed worldwide by WAPSI and Veniard Ltd; 

it is also distributed in Scandinavia by Grayling Dreams

WAPSI will distribute BUG-BOND Original, BUG-BOND Lite & BUG-BOND dispensing Tip-Kits 

Mario joins the BUG-BOND team.

Mario Malarczuk is the newest member of the BUG-BOND Pro-Tying Team... and is also owner of the shop Marios Fliegendose in Sindelfingen in Germany. 

Mario comes to the team as a prolific fly tyer, tying some fantastic flies and backing this up by catching fish on those flies as well!

This is a little history of Mario...

"I think I caught my first fish 1976 when I was 4 years old.

After some hundred eels, perches and roaches in the following years I had my first contact with a carp.Impressed with its power I spent the next 10 years carp fishing.

In 1992 I bought my first fly rod. A heavy and very soft #8 rod with a none matching fly line. I was living in the north of Germany and no tackle dealer knew anything about fly fishing. I fished in a small lake for pike without any success, but I was now a fly fisher!

1994 I went to university and moved to Marburg at the river Lahn in the middle of Germany. After a few days I caught my first grayling with a dryfly and was completely hooked. I also started directly with fly tying because flies where expensive for a student.

The first try at this small river with a pike fly ended with three fish in two hours. Pike flies where easy to tie because of their size. So I made a lot of them and caught a lot pike. The owner of the local flyshop asked me to tie some flies for him and this was the beginning of my business.

I tied thousands of flies in the next years, sold a lot of them in upcoming ebay and created my first webshop.

      

Today I specialize in tying streamers for freshwater and saltwater. First I used epoxy for the heads, but I never particularly liked to work with this stuff because the setting was difficult to control. When I heard the first time of a UV product to create the heads of my flies I searched and tested many products to find the perfect material.

I then bought my first bottle of BUG-BOND and the search was over….."

Welcome to the team Mario!

The 100% BUG-BOND Egg

The 100% BUG-BOND Egg... that's a mouthful... it's not a pattern of mine - its an enhancement of a pattern that was shown to me by Alan Hill at a show in Dublin when we were both tying there... that egg was a killer for Alan in a series of competitions picking up Grayling. That pattern was then passed to Hywel Morgan who fished it and has subsequently included it in his River Patterns DVD...

Wind the clock back as Hywel's DVD is not long out... I was tying at a show at Glasgow Angling Centre September 2011 and one of the lads from the shop showed me the 100% BUG-BOND Egg but with a translucent yolk sac. As above from October last year... Now that wasn't the end of the story... I was talking to Andy Larkin from British Columbia (a Bug-Bond user) who told me he used hot coloured tungsten beads as the yolk sac...

And that still isn't the end of the story... Barry Ord Clarke has a piece in his blog the feather bender on his version called the Grayling Heroe - Trout Egg.... which follows on from his Sperm Covered Egg Fly of approx 15 years ago made of hot melt glue.

Perhaps I will come clean on eggs-actly how I made my egg fly and provide a step by step...

What I will say is... based on observations and comments from folk who have tried the egg fly using alternative resins... its dead easy with BUG-BOND!