Size doesn't matter... but it helps!

You sometimes get that feeling in your water that the day is going to be good... not often as we would like BUT I just had to leave work early today.

1600 hrs and I was away from the desk and by 1700 hrs almost at the lake... My hollow tie was deployed in several marks but all failed to attract... BUT I knew I was in the wrong place! As the sun started to dip I decided to go to a mark where I'd lost a reasonable pike previously and decided to play hardball... I knew that I'd scored in this mark with dark flies... black or olive and decided to use one of my pal, Simon Graham's ties. Simon has become a great pal over the ether and we occasionally phone each other to chew the fat... I look forward to tying along side him at the BFFI in October!

I have digressed the tube fly... very wet at the moment is an olive raccoon tail, gold flash and brown raccoon head with a gold conehead... I armed it with a Sakuma Manta 2/0...

I cast into a mark where I'd had a loss earlier this year casting beyond the lilies and bringing the fly back on both sides of the V... Nothing was doing. However there is another slot in the lilies 6ft away but a difficult cast... more a back cast between the shrubbery and cast to the open water but then cast it onto the corner of the small lily pads... hopping it over the top of them and then dropping it into the water. Second cast and as it just dropped into the water a bait fish went vertical and with a boil of the water I was in...

Boy did this fish run for open water... a strong fish that I was keen to subdue quickly and get back in quickly... My newly built rod, a self build Harrison Lohric 9' 9# was perfection itself and at no point did I feel out of control...

So between my pal Simon Graham and my friends Steve Harrison and Mike Helliwell at Harrison Advanced Rods I banked a personal best at 16lb...

The photos are from the phone again... and thanks to the lad who took the photos!

72 inch Tarpon... its a kinda magic!

I've been so busy with Bug-Bond recently and a well earned holiday has been and gone... I arrived back a week ago... some exciting stuff in the pipeline... But here is the holiday report!!

I spent an age tying a variety of saltwater flies destined for the UK shores and pattern wise I was generally happy with them BUT it is quite difficult to score in the UK waters in comparison to other waters around the globe... especially if you are new to SWFFing (pike being my thang).

So a family holiday in the Caribbean was a potential solution and had me tying a hell of a lot more flies... the final death throes saw me getting a few flies from Oz at UKsaltwaterflies and my pal Dougie tied a few flashtail whistlers up for me as well... just to try!!

I did a lot of homework and with the help of a UK based forum member I was able to tap into the local knowledge... he having relatives there.

Over the course of the 10 day holiday I was able to go out on a local boat and hookup some Bonito/small tuna... the local fare tho' had to be the very obliging horse eye jacks that never failed but the bigger jacks were moving offshore even whilst I was there... so by the end of the holiday I was getting battered by smaller fish... I did have a superb follow off a couple of bones but I ran out of water... the area doesn't really have flats.

All the above were taken on a combination of shrimp patterns, poppers, bush pigs and candies that I've posted on forums and facebook over the last few months...

THE highlight of the 10 days was being told of a secret location for tarpon... now my downfall here is that I'd only tied two pukka tarpon flies one a Marquesa Sunrise (a copy of Brian Gent's) and a Black Death... on my 3rd/4th day I found myself with a local who was spinning for jacks, he and I worked together spotting fish for each other. I saw a shadow of about 3 or 4ft and my local angler shouted back to me "tarpon"... I tied on the Black Death and put out a couple of casts to no avail... some 15 or 20 mins elapsed and I saw a group of 3 similar sized fish and cast well in front and let the fly sink a little... I then started to strip and frankly to my disbelief I had 3 big eyes and mouths turn for the fly and I stripped quicker... then next thing that happened had me gob smacked and trembling afterwards, the water erupted and my fly was buried... line went thru the rings at a rapid pace and my inexperience got the better of me... the tarpon jumped... but it wasn't a 4 footer but based on the local estimate given to me it was a fish of about 6 foot and they said that it was in the order of 120lb... in the morning sun at about 0630 I saw the biggest slab of silver I have ever seen in my life... these are tremendous fish... needless to say I was bust off, my impunity treated with disdain by this magnificent fish. This was the biggest fish I have ever been connected to... even for the very short period of time I had with it!

I saw a tarpon of a similar size the following day but fluffed the shot completely... I had numerous follows from other smaller tarpon but no hits... next time I'll major on tying the Black Death and a lot of them!! They wouldn't touch the Sunrise even though they would follow it.

Here are a few snaps from my hols... proving that some of my flies work :D sadly none of the tarpon BUT a memory etched on my mind indelibly for ever... and I'm firmly caught by the bug of wanting to land a tarpon...


As a footnote... the vast majority of fish were released... obviously the Bonito/tuna weren't and there is an expectation by the locals for fish to end up in the pot... they couldn't get to grips with me putting fish back... they'd take what I would term relatively small fish for the pot. I even got adept at losing fish off one particular popper ;) when fishing in front of one family... a further comment on the size of the tarpon - having done a bit of research this evening a 6ft tarpon is guesstimated at somewhere between 100 and 120lb... I'd be quite happy with the lower estimate!

Stonefly - just an awesome tie!

I can't believe that the Dutch Fly Fair was 3 weeks ago... it seems an age away, yet just like yesterday. One of the people I had the pleasure of meeting was Johan Put... a great tyer and full of fun.

Johan had a terrific stand of realistics at the show and he decided that he wanted to become a Bug-Bond believer... this is an excerpt from an email I received from him tonight together with the attached image:

"I bought the Bug-Bond on the Dutch Fly Fair, but have to wait until today before I can test it.

So today was the test day, first made some baitfish to practice and it works great, no more messing around whit epoxy and have a lot of waste which always happen to me.

Then the big test for the wing cases of the stonefly, normally it take me about 30 minutes to create them and them let then dry over night for the best result whit the soft body.

Now it took me about 10 minutes to create and can use it directly.

I put some very tin layers on the nymph tool to built up some nice realistic wing cases.

Now I can show people how I made the wing cases on shows and tying demo’s.

The legs are broom bristles how are thicken up on spots also whit the Bug-Bond.
And the eyes are to.

So the Bug-Bond has proved it self to me, I have some more ideas but to little time.
You be hearing from me again whit some new bug bond flies." Johan Put - Netherlands


All I can say is the fly is awesome... usually I take the link out of the image or click it to the Bug-Bond site... however, for this fly click the link and just see the attention to detail... WOW!

Silverfishfly Steve Silverio mentions Bug-Bond

I met Steve at the Dutch Fly Fair and enjoyed a few beers with this great tyer. He used Bug-Bond during the fair and then kindly mentioned it during his lecture on tying a clouser pattern fly.

Rod repair - it gets better!

Bug-Bond was orientated around fly-tying... that's what I designed it for but I was also very aware that it would have other uses.... back in February, Steve Harrison of Harrison Advanced Rods documented it on his blog that I was developing it into product to replace epoxy on rod rings... I've had a play with various whip finishes on blanks but had to do one in anger today on my 9' 8/9#. I'm not a rod builder and don't have a turner... this was by hand... perhaps a bit too much juice but for an emergency repair for fishing this week it is fine... the big thing is it only took 4 minutes! Oh and sag free in 3.5 seconds when you first apply the UV light...

Landing the big one!

Well it has been almost a fortnight and it’s been quite full on!

A week last Monday I had a call from my pal Toby Merigan of Funky Fly Tying Products to ask whether I’d seen the June issue of Fly Fishing & Fly Tying (FF&FT) magazine… in a word I hadn’t and a call to the magazine had a copy winging its way to me by special delivery.

Hectic was the word – I’d planned a fishing trip to leave Friday and the magazine hit the news stands that day but subscribers already had their magazines and the enquiries had already started to come through… I delayed my early start to fulfil some orders before I left… in addition I needed new waders and boots for the trip! Doh! I had to go to two shops one for the boots and one for the waders. I really need a PA for this business…

So what am I going on about? Magnus Angus of FF&FT has reviewed Bug-Bond, not only that BUT it is a 2 page review… I am naturally over the moon. For those that don’t know FF&FT is THE magazine and Magnus is THE reviewer… get a good review off him is like getting a smile from Gordon Ramsay after he’s been over your kitchen and it’s OK! During the review process there has been a lot of to and fro between Magnus and me and apart from knowing that he liked the product I had no input into what was being written.

Interestingly I had a conversation with Mark Bowler the editor of the magazine and he said that he couldn’t believe it when Magnus said he’d written a 2 page article on an adhesive.

My thanks go to Magnus for his kind review and the magazine which celebrates its 20th Anniversary in June this year… I can’t think of a better issue to be in than the anniversary edition…

The flies in the review were from a selection of flies from the Flickr photostream re photographed by Magnus. So the published tyers without any credit in the magazine were Lawrence Finney, Chris Reed & Brian Gent… thank you and thank you to the tyers who provided flies that weren’t included.

It is also fitting that the magazine article has been published now as Bug-Bond in its final format has been tested for a full 12 months… I’m pleased to be able to say that an original sample of the material was cured yesterday a year on without any issue… and it still cures tack free!! A sample of Bug-Bond that was cured last year and that has been through the dishwasher, the oven at 200ºC and lived outside in rain, hail, snow and shine is still going strong without discolouration!

A big thank you to all that have supported me and the concept of Bug-Bond during the last 12 months…

Barry Reynolds endorses Bug-Bond

Photos courtesy of Barry Reynolds

The internet is a great device for moving information and folk who know me, are aware that there are a number of e-pals who have influenced my pike fly fishing. One of those e-pals is Barry Reynolds. I’ve read Barry’s books cover to cover and watched his video so much that I can recite it and play out the fights in my mind… oh to be able to fish Alaska and Saskatchewan!

Anyway I digress. During an e-conversation I mentioned Bug-Bond to Barry and as he has no affiliation with competing products the discussions went further. I am very pleased to announce that Barry Reynolds endorses Bug-Bond. Barry has kindly provided photos of his famous Gen X Bunny flies now tied with Bug-Bond. He has also kindly allowed me to quote the content of an email from him.

“Hi David!

I sat down over the weekend in-between fishing and tied up some mini Gen X Bunny flies (still one of my go to pike flies) they suck to cast but catch pike like hell…… I’m impressed with your product to say the least! While this was not a full blown tying session for the flies I did tie gave me a chance to get familiar with the product and the best way to build up the head. I love the ease and quickness of Bug-Bond and the clarity is incredible! I hope to get time to sit down and tie some of larger baitfish patterns this week! Even with my limited time to tie this past weekend what few flies I did manage turned out great with your product. I need to play more and experiment on some of my other flies. I will say this after tying those flies I compared them to other flies I had tied before using other epoxies and finishes and without a doubt your Bug-Bond stands out as the “CLEAR” winner!

Talk to you soon,

Barry (Barry Reynolds, Colorado)”