Well, it’s raining, wind is blowing really strong and the snow melts. Right weather to tie a fly, watching fish porn and dreaming about the fishing season to come.
I used the 35mm Articulated Shanks and the new Living Eyes „Ice“ from Flymen Fishing Company for it for this pattern, together with arctic fox, zonker stripe and Senyo’s Laser Dub.
Inspired by my buddy Alex Jobski, I tied this Wiggle-Fox tuned with a Zonker Stripe. Looks pretty cool! Thanks Alex! ;-)
A cold sunday afternoon. After a very stressful week, I was sitting at my tying desk, not directly knowing what to tie. I just let my ideas flow. The result is a big pike tube fly, the „Mean Green Pike Piercer“. It’s tied on a Pro Sportfisher Flexi Tube and for the head I used a Pro Softhead.
When I was a child, I got a big box full of LEGO. I loved to play with it for hours! Ok, my mom was often not so happy, because after playing, my room looked like after an explosion of a bomb. :-)
I still „play“ with a kind of LEGO today. Well, it’s more like a fly tying LEGO. I’m talking about the tube fly system from Morten Bundgaard, owner and chief creative of Pro Sportfisher. Like Lego, everything fits together perfectly. It’s just so fun to be creative and to find out, how much is possible.
For this step by step of the Pro Tube Baitfish, I used several products of Pro Sportfisher, especially the new Pro Raw Weights made out of tungsten and the brand new Pro Softheads, which are awesome. Perfect alternative to epoxy and uv resin for cool heads.
Materials:
Put the Pro Flexitube on the Pro Tubefly-Needle and do some turns with the thread. Split the thread and put some STS-Dubbing ind the gap and spin the bobbin. After twisting, give the dubbing a good brush with your velcro and wind it around.
Put a little bit of super glue on the thread and do some turns. Cut of the thread and put a clear Pro Soft Sonic Disc on the tube. In front of the disc, attach the thread to the tube again.
Take a bunch of fox and tie it in directly in front of the disc. Take some strands of Pro Angelhair HD and tie them in, too. At last, take another bunch of fox, slightly longer than the first bunch, spread it a little bit and tie it on top.
Split the thread again, put some ice dub pearl into the gap, spin the bobbin and brush the twisted dubbing. Wind the dubbing around, brush it again and put the Pro Raw Weight in front of the dubbing. This will give the tube a nice balance with a little bit jigging.
Take the white Laser Dub and tie it underneath the tube, then so the same with the olive Laser Dub on top. If you want, you can give the dubbing on top some dots or stripes by using a permanent marker.
Make a short whip finish and cut off the thread. Put the Pro Softhead on the tube and border the tip of the tube with your lighter. Just do a little drop of super glue into the recess and glue in some 3D-eyes of your liking. That’s it, you got a great baitfish tube! Just attach a single hook like the Owner Mosquito for example and you are ready to go!
Missing Link – Everything comes together:
Rabbit Stripe, Articulated Shank, Krinkle Flash, Crazy Legs, Ostrich, SLF+Flash-Dubbing, Arctic Fox, Deerhair-Head and nice Eyes.
After tying some flies for grayling in size 18 & 20 I decided to tie two pike flies on Partridge Predator hooks size 4/0 as an equalization….one very colorful, the other one in muted colors….
Tied mainly with rabbit stripes and arctic fox.
I made two short videos how the articulated pike streamer move in the water. The blue streamer is the same as the white/olive one, just another color. Due to the big head made from uv-resin, the craft fur keep its volume in the current and moves really nicely!
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/52331026[/vimeo]
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/52330517[/vimeo]
One of my most fished patterns for pike. It’s easy to tie, very durable, you can tie it in the length you want and it wiggles nice through the water. You can also use arctic fox for the front collar instead of finn raccoon. Works well, too.
Materials:
Tie in a piece of mono for the ribbing and mix ice dub pearl and ice dub holographic silver. Then split the thread and put the dubbing mix into the gap. Spin the bobbin to twist the dubbing. Wind the dubbing hank around the hook shank and give it a good brush with your velcro.
Tie in a piece of finn raccoon zonker 5mm next to the hook eye. Then ribb the raccoon zonker with the mono to secure it on the hook shank and catch the mono with your thread.
Tie in the krinkle mirror flash and the gliss’n glow. Then form a loop with your thread and wax the loop. Put a piece of finn raccoon in the loop and cut away the leather. Twist the loop with the raccoon slowly. When the fur is secured in the loop, wind the raccoon around the shank to the hook eye. Comb the twisted raccoon after every turn.
Tie in a strand of lateral scale pearl on each side and split the thread. Put again some dubbing in the gap und twist the bobbin Wind the twisted dubbing around and brush it with your velcro to give the head some extra sparcle.
If you like it, you can do a little hot point with some fluo thread. Glue some sexy eyes on the head and secure the head with Bug Bond.
Ready for pike!
tl Holger Lachmann
Here’s an example for an articulated pike streamer, which is easy to cast, because we try to create volume without putting to much material into the fly. To much material makes the just inflexible (and expensive ;-) )
I used for this pattern the new articulated shanks from the Flymen Fishing Co. in 35mm to get the right movement and position of the hook.
Material:
Put the hook into the vise, do some turns with your thread and tie in the fox as tail and some strands Flashabou Mirage.
Split your tying thread or form a dubbing loop and put the ice dub between and twist it. Then brush it with your velcro and wind it around the hook shank.
Tie in some fox with the tips pointing to the hook eye, cut the waste, put again some dubbing between the thread, twist it and wind it to the front. Then go with the thread between the fox hair to the hook eye.
Push the fox hair with an empty pen towards the hook bend. Then tie in a green grizzly hackle on each side and some strands of krinkle mirror flash. Whip finish and secure with super glue.
Attach the hook with the articulated shank and put the shank into your vise. Then close the gap with a strong thread and super glue (the little pearls on the thread) to fix the hook. This will hold forever!
Create another dubbing hank and wind it around to create a little bump. Then tie in a bunch of artic fox on the hook shank and a bunch underneath. Comb the hair carefully. Another dubbing hank will follow.
Tie in two green grizzy hackles and some krinkle mirror flash. Then comb a bunch of black arctic fox and tie it in like shown on the picture. Trim away the waste and do some rounds with dubbing and do a quick whip finish secured with super glue.
Push the black fox backwards, attach the eyes and secure the whole head with Bug Bond.
That’s it! Ready to go. Have fun with the pikes!
Holger Lachmann
Here’s a Surf Candy style pattern tied with the new Fleye Foils by Bob Popovics. The tail made out of arctic fox wiggles nice in the water. Much better than most synthetics. It’s not just a battern for the saltwater fisherman, you can also fish it in freshwater. Small sizes for trout and char for example, bigger ones for asp. Just give it a try.
Materials:
Tie in the arctic fox as tail and 3 strands of krinkle mirror flash, one on each side and one on top.
3mm in front of the fox, tie in a bunch of white senyo’s laser dub on the top of the hook shank and one underneath.
Do the same with a bunch of laser dub holographic minnow belly 3 mm infront of the white dub.
Now, pick two colors of laser dub of your liking, here it’s light olive and shrimp pink, and tie it in like you see above.
Pull the laser dub backwards, that’s how you put a bit of volume to the head, otherwise it won’t fit to the shape of the foil.
Put a foil on each side. Just tie in the little „nose“ of the foil with a couple of turns and whip finish the fly.
Pull the laser dub and the foils backwards and start to apply the uv resin on the body. The resin should soak into the dubbing, that gives the fly later some translucency. Mostly it’s easier to applicate two layers of uv resin. You got much more control of everything.
If you don’t use a tackfree uv resin, put a thin coating of nail varnish on the uv resin to get a tackfree glossy finish.
That’s it! Ready for fishing!
tl
Holger Lachmann
The asp is a fun fish for the fly rod. I got some friends, who are really go nuts, when the weather gets warmer and the asp starts to splash through the surface while hunting for baitfish.
The best fly colour for asp is white, so a white 3-D baitfish imitation works well for them. You need to put some weight into the fly, because often you fish in fast water for asp and you don’t want the baitfish pattern to flip over the surface instead of swinging some centimeters below it.
Arctic fox moves fantastic in the water, but you got often the problem, that the hair tangles around the hook while casting. You can avoid this by puting some uv resin on the fox near the hook to make it stiff. That’s an easy way to create a tangle-free fox fly.
Material:
Wind some lead around the hook shank and secure it with super glue.
Tie in some arctic fox and some strands of electra scale on each side. Secure the fox with uv resin next to the hook and cure it with the uv torch.
Make a loop with your tying thread and put some ice dub in the gap. Twist the loop with your dubbing twister and brush the dubbing with your velcro brush to create a fluffy dubbing strand.
Wind the twisted dubbing around the hook shank and brush it again.
Tie in some laser dub on the top and on the bottom like shown on the picture.
Put some eyes on each side of the fly by using super glue and paint some gills on each side with a permanent marker.
On the first picture, you can see how nice all the materials look, when wet.
tight lines
Holger Lachmann
Material:
Put a hook in the vise and tie in some fox tail hair. Put a strand of krinkle mirror flash on each side and tie it in.
Mix the dubbing. I used SLF Saltwater Dub in pearl and ginger and a little bit of SLF Prism dub.
Tie in the mono for ribbing, split the thread, put the dubbing in the gap and spin the bobbin to twist the dubbing and the thread.
Wind around the dubbing, tie in a hackle next to the hook eye and wind it backwards, then wind the ribbing to the front to secure the hackle. Catch the ribbing and do a whip finish. Use a velcro brush to comb the fly.
Cut the hook bend.
Put another hook in the vise and wind some lead wire on the front of the hook.
Tie in a piece of mono for the connection between the two pieces.
Connect the two pieces like above. Use super glue to fix everything.
Tie in another piece of mono for ribbing, then split the thread and put the dubbing in the gap. Spin the bobbin to twist the dubbing and wind it around to the front.
Wind around a hackle and rib it with mono like you’ve done with the first section.
You can finish the fly or dub a little head, put some 3 D eyes on each side and secure them with uv-resin.
tl Holger Lachmann