Woke up early this morning, opened my front door and a very strong wind wafted into my face. Well, that’s autumn. So, no fishing today. Tied some flashy tubes for pike this morning. Each one is tied a little bit different. I’m curious which one will works best.
A quick flash tube using different colors of flash, bucktail, two grizzly hackles, Senyos laser dub and two eyes. Very simple, but it moves awesome in the water.
I love to fish and tie sandeel patterns for sea trout in the Baltic Sea (a friend also caught Stripers and False Albacore with it very well btw).
My „Baltic Candy„, a variation of Bob Popovics famous Surf Candy, is after some years in use quite well known among the coastal fishermen, which makes me pretty happy and proud, to be honest.
This Laser Eel is another variation, which is quite easy to tie, maybe easier than the original Baltic Candy. The only difficulty is the use of uv resin on/in the Laser Dubbing, but there is no extra weight used, so the body becomes easily slick.
Just give this fly a try, it looks even better in the water. ;-)
Materials:
Place the hook in the vise, tie in a piece of polar fibre in white, then a couple of strands of angelhair and another piece of polar fibre, this time in olive. It’s very important to comb the material carefully.
Wind some strands of the laser Flash rainbow around the hook shank and catch it with your thread.
Tie in a bunch of Senyo’s Laser Dub on top and underneath the hook shank and comb it backwards. Bring the thread to the hook eye and do a whip finish. Put the eyes on right place on both sides.
Put some Bug Bond on the head and let it soak into the Laser Dubbing. Cure it with your Bug Bond uv torch.
Apply another coating of Bug Bond to make the head nice and slick.
That’s it! The finished fly, very durable and fishy! Hopefully it brings a nice bend in your rod!
Another tube for pike tied on a flexi tube using some feathers, bucktail, flash, craft fur and senyo’s laser dub.
I tied this pike tube on a clear Pro Sportfisher Flexitube using feathers, bucktail, different kinds of flash, ostrich, senyo’s laser dub and 15mm living eyes „ice“ from Flymen Fishing Company. It got a total length of 22cm. Looking forward to cast this tube next to some crocs.
High water level + murky water + streamer = big trout! (Hopefully!)
Some articulated pike flies in natural colors tied on 4/0 hooks. I don’t know why, but I got a lot of faith in it at the moment.
The Bad Ass Bass Banger – A streamer perfect for bass/perch and zander/walleye. It has a great action under water, because of the excellent moving tail, the jigging and the massiv front collar, which pushes a lot of water. It’s easy and fast to tie, durable and just a great fishing fly. The jigging can be controled by the weight of the brass dumbells.
Materials:
Put the hook in the vise, wind a good basement of thread and tie in the dumbell eyes. Use super glue during the tying, so the dumbells won’t slip around the hook shank during fishing.
Splitt the thread or make a dubbing loop, but the ice dubbing in the gap and twist it, then brush ist with your velcro-brush and wind it from the back to the front behind the dumbells. Then brush the dubbing body again.
Jab the hook through the leather of the rabbit stripe and tie the stripe right behind the dumbells down. Secure the punctured stripe with a little drop of super glue.
Tie in the krinkle mirror flash an each side. I prefer to use two or more different colors of flash. Split the thread again and put some rabbit stripe in a material clamp and cut away the leather. Put the rabbit stripe hair into the thread gap and twist the thread, then wind it around the hook next to the dumbells.
Change the thread and tie in the laser dub like shown on the pictures above on top and on the underside. The lighter color always belong to the underside.
Finish with a nice massive thread-head, which pushes the senyo back.
Push the senyo dubbing on the underside to the back and apply the Bug Bond on the underside and on the head.
Ready to fish! Wish you a lot of fun with the Bad Ass Bass Banger!
tl
Holger Lachmann
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.
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!
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
Lutz Schepers from www.theflypeople.com asked me some weeks ago, if I wanted to test the new Fleye Foils by Bob Popovics. I always liked the flies and ideas of Bob Popovics, so I surely wanted to test his newest idea. The foils imitate the eyes, the gills, the silver belly and flanks on one side of the fly with just one simple tying step.
I don’t know the reason why, but when I got the foils, I didn’t felt the inner drive to test them immediately. Maybe I didn’t wanted to do the normal Sury Candy with it.
This morning, I did the first tests with the smallest „Bay Anchovy“ foils. The fly you see below is the first try. It’s a really simple fly made out of a hook, mono thread, different colors of Senyo’s Laser Dub, Fleye Foils and uv resin. It doesn’t look to shabby for a first try, I think.
The Fleye Foils are easy to use. You just have to tie in the „nose“ next to the hook eye and push the sticky backsides of the foils against the flanks of the fly. One or two coatings of uv resin and you are done.
After tying some patterns with Fleye Foils, I have to say, that if you want to make Surf Candy-style flies as fast and easy as possible, the foils are an enrichment. The only thing I would suggest to improve is, to give more expression to the eyes.
tl Holger Lachmann
I was invited to tie at the Dutch Fly Fair last weekend. A small Mini Sculpin pattern was lying on my desk in front of me while tying. It was less then 5 cm long. A lot of people liked it, especially Walter Bayer from Ireland (great flytyer) and Roger Enger Lie (great caster) from Norway and I had to promise to them, that I will do a step by step tutorial of this little guy.
So guys, this one is for you! ;-)
Material:
Put a tungsten bead on the hook.
Tie in a piece of pine squirrel zonker as a tail.
Put some pine squirrel hair in the clamp, then split the thread and put the hair in the gap.
Rotate the bobbin to twist the hair and the thread. Put a litlle bit of water on the hair, so it’s easier to wrap it around the hook shank.
Tie in bunches of Senyo’s Laser Dub. Remember, this is a up side down pattern, so tie in the bright color on top of the fly and the dark color underneath. You can create different shades by using different colors. Finish the tying with a whip finish behind the tungsten bead.
Now, start the cutting to create a sculpin head. The easiest way is to begin with the flat underside.
Before the cutting is finished, use some superglue to fix the 3-D eyes on top of the sculpin head and press the eyes into the Laser Dub to give the head strength. Now, you can do the final cutting.
That’s it! A small sculpin which swims down on the bottom of the river, because of the tungsten bead.
Note: Please press down the barb of the hook! Trouts will take the sculpin very aggressively!
tight lines
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