It’s been a while since my last post, but it does not mean that I was dead or have forgot about my frequent readers. Winter was the time to focus a bit more on Forum and fly tying two. So where is the result? Not so fast…

SHRUBE fly

Meanwhile it is hard to design a perfect fly! One that is easy to tie, but in same time with great looks and moves,  but most important -- magnetic to fish. Especially when it comes to saltwater shrimps. And I’m not saying, that there are no great patterns arround -- of corse there are, like Pattegrisen and general patterns likes Magnus and Grey frede. But you always may add or change something… In the search of perfection I was always thinking about perfect Shrimp fly on the tube, with the stable movement in the water and all other benefits that one may have out of tiny small plastic piece. Hence I am a salmon fishermen two I do like tube flies – they are very versatile: you can change the hook if needed, add some prepared tails, put a heavier hook and land the trophy with more confidence. After all, another forgotten benefit – you can tie almost translucent flies, that is close to impossible on the hooks.

Unfortunattelly saltwater fly fishermen in my oppinion so far have underrated tubes, by using trusted single hooks. Maybe only those big game boys who are focusing on Salefish and other giants know the true value of tubes… But not here in the Baltics. Ouahhh..,  still it is hard to find established tube patterns. So, after several modifications, here comes the Shrube fly. Why SHRUBE? Because SHRimp and tUBE, and it is shorter than shrimp pattern tied on tube. Ok, you can rather coppy it or change, but always keep in mind that fly must have a certain mass distribution otherwise it will not move as sexy as sea trout loves it? Certainly you can replace Polar Fiber with Spey hackle or CDC with other feathers, never mind! After all presentation matters most! So, i’m leaving today to chase the Swedens silver and who knows.. maybe SHRUBE will do the thing!

I will let you know…

What a fibers

I always wonder why fly tying materials are so pricey!? Ok, ok, ok, I can understand the price for all the genetic capes, jungle cocks and other natural materials, but why the f..k the synthetics are 10 times more expensive as it should be? Also it is well known that many fly tying products are not specially designed for this purpose, but are waste or by products from some industry! Also there is too many people involved in packaging, selling and marketing, so finally our flies also get quite pricey. What we can do here, someone may ask? Just take a chance and visit all the funny craft shops that are dedicated for women! Recently, when we came back from seatrout fishing, we discovered such a shop in the Stockholms city center!

Afro Silky fro Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal is specializing in selling wig and all other types of artificial hair. All shop just for this purpose – for us it means fly tying! It was full with different colored artificial hair, that mainly was not useful for tying, but there where also some hidden treasure! Afro Silky Kanekalon was just like Kinky fiber and similar to other well known saltwater fly tying synthetics! And the price… It was 50 times less than normally you have it in your shop. For 4 euro you can get one pack that includes at least 30 typical fly tying packages. And the length of fibers are more than enough – around 1 meter. So, it should be enough even for the creasiest ideas. So we picked up all 6 useful colors and made at home 6 equal sets.  4 euro each.  Not bad, for perfect material that is usefull for almost any pike fly. Now it has been already tested – just as good as all originals! So, if you visit Stockholm, don’t miss the chance to get to Taj Mahal – it is 500 meters from central cinema and market place, up the hill on the quiet pedestrian street.

and there is a lot..

Ready to go

Winter, winter, winter… It seems that this year winter will last long, and it means no fly fishing for a while. But, no fly fishing – yes, it means fly tying. I like to load my fly boxes with ugly and nasty patters before new season arrives and this is the best time to do it. HOW ABOUT YOU? You would like to, but for you it means table cleaning, taking out all the stuff and then putting it all iback, and so on. And all this to tie just a few flies… No, i’ll better grab a pint and reread an lovely article about fly tying before spring arrives. Honestly – I know this feeling. When i moved to my current flat i faced these issues. Even more – i have a small boy, who is extremely interested in everything, that is small and unusual. So i was planing to make a new tying bench. Above small details i was confident only about two things – first, all the materials (or major ones) and tools must be easily observable and accessible with in one touch (with out seeking for box, then bag and so on..). And other important issue was to get out of dust and child’s nasty hands – these, espesially in between 2 and 3 years can destroy everything within one minute. So my bench must have a shutter or something like that.

The dark side of every good project of coarse is money… Less means bigger shitty! So I faced two unmatchable things – price and quality. While getting almost exhausted by searching something suitable, I founded this beautiful bench, that during the previous life was serving in some small ofice somewhere in Sweden. I am not afraid of purchasing gently used things, especially if these came from country where I love to fish and are made from natural oak, but not plastic. So i picked up this affordable furniture and step by step converted it to my present fly tying bench. Now i have already tied some thousand flies during the last years and i can say – i am fully satisfied. All materials and essentials are within one touch, i can finish tying and close everything within one minute, and restart immediately. You will soon recognize in pictures that instead of huge table i have an open drawer with a small removable (white) surface in front of me where to put all materials and tools that are in use. This is really comfy, because large desk areas usually gets loaded with all possible crap, and finaly gives you nothing more that just increase of entropy. Materials and other stuff that i am using not so frequent are sleeping in a ground level of my bench safely locked under the lower shutter. Safe and secure – SS.
So – take a look at the pictures and pick up some ideas if you are on the way to create your tying corner.
See you next week,
RR

Major materials - each in separate compartment

Desk is closed

Opened position

My trash - attached with a paper clip

Sleeping bench

Lower compartment while shutter is opened - materials resting...

With inner light turned on

Renzetti port

Willie Gun Pro edition

So, is there anything new in tube  fly tying? To be honest, all the principles remain the same, but components are getting better and better. Few years ago  Mikael Frödin came out with the new turbodiscs and now we can say that this inovation will stay for long. In Kolding fly festival I met Morten Bundgaard from Pro tubes and I was quite impressed with posibilities. So let me introduce this tube fly LEGO step by step.

Softdiscs

Rubber discs or Pro Softdiscs as it is named. These 12 mm discs are offered in 7 colors are designed  to handle wing and hackle in shape when fly is chasing current.  If you apply hackle close to the disc, it will stay in shape even in the wildest current, and your fly would not loose the volume .

No dobt – it will help you to feel fly better on the stream also. Rubber is quite soft and what is mor important – seems indestructible.  While designed to handle hackle it can be used as a front disc also.

Harddisc

Plastic discs or Pro hardiscs are offered in wider spectra of diameters : 10, 14 and magnifiscent 18 mm, that are something ultra mega big for salmon flies. I think it can be used for pike flies also and maybe it will have some salt water aplications in the futere.  Theses discs you can use in the same way as softdiscs, but mainly they are designed to stay in the front of the fly. Inner diameter is small, because it is originaly designed to use these discs directly on the tippet, but if you melt a bigger hole in the middle, you can pull these on the plastic tubing also. Colors are typical salmonoid: red, orange, green, black, yellow and clear,  so you can choose one that suits best.  While this discs are quite stiff, they are not loosing any color and not coming whitish, if we bend them. So they must last for some fish too.

Metal Conediscs

Pro conediscs. These are the discs that i was hoping to see in market for years. Deep hole, with the lot of space for head, convex shaped that is opposite that usual concave shaped coneheads have. Of coarse, these discs will have bigger stream preasure than conventional cones, and that`s good. At the moment 4 colors are available (see picture), but green yellow and orange will come out soon. At least Morten have prommised so. There are four diametrs available 5,5 mm/0,14 g; 7,5 mm/0,27 g; 9,5 mm/0,43 g; and 11,5 mm/ 0,63 g.  For me 7,5 mm and 9,5 mm cones are the commonly used ones.  For shure these conediscs must be mounted in front, but  if someone likes he can put them also instead of softdisc beneath the hackle. This will add some extra weight to your fly.

Propellers

What else can we put on the tubes front? Hm – some coins? Salmon does not have a place to spend these… Maybe Propeller? Fly will not fly of corse. But, these fast rotating creatures will make some noise and vibrations, that can be atractive for fish. Morten told me about the effectivnes of these tinny little things – no salmons for three fishermen without and 6 with cones attached. On the same spot same day. Too impresive to believe imediatelly, so I  will check and let you know. While outer diametrs are 10 and 13 mm inner hole takes tippets up to 0,50, while the hole is 0,60 mm. That 0.10mm difference is nececery to lubricate the tippet with water, that will allow not only free rotation, but will also not harm your monofilament. Some may say 0,50 is not enough – hhmmm, where they are fishing?

Bullettube

Bullettube system is something nice to play with. It consists of plastical tube and bullet weights, that can be mounted in different ways on different color tubes. While plastic remains in the same size and only colors are different, bulletweights are in two sizes and three classical colors – silver, gold and black. So what it`s all about? It`s about mixing – you can apply one big or small bullet on tube ore use two rather big ore small and so on. In other words, this is not only one piece of metal, but much more. With certain combinations out of the 2 bullets,  you can achieve 5 combinations of weight. In the futere i hope Morten will ad few other bullet colors in the pallete, so we can play even more. If you take a closer look on the system you will notice, that end part of the tube, where hook is attached is quite thick.  This system offers loose hook position, but if you like you can fix the hook position wiith pro hookguides.

Hookguides

These are rubber Flexi tubes, that can be applyed on the hook directly, so there are nothing new one can say. But there is something – these soft rubber tubes are conical, and there are several benefits from this. First on the hook this bright tube does not look so bulk, and also you can insert thinest end in the bullet tube system to fix the hook position. Small yet effective improvement. There are two syzes available at the moment in 7 different colors. For me it seems that this is the same material that is used in softdiscs, because colors and stiffness are absolutely the same.

What else? Hhhhmmmm, there are also flexitubes and flexiweights, but Morten still impruvethis system, so I will let you know when it will came out finished!

Lets take a look in simple Willie Gun how Pro tubes are performing.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

View from Back

WG with hard disc

WG with conediscs

After final tuning