Tying for the season opener.

This week has been a living nightmare at work with removing all snow from the streets and add some sand to prevent some slippery,haven´t been much more than working and sleeping. Well some tying but just a couple of flies and like every year it seems to be kind of panic to have enough tubes before springtime and a long awaited season opener. As I wrote in my last post I waited for a parcel to arrive from Poland and To be honest I was a little bit suspicious of the whole case but parcel arrived and the material was good quality and now I have many different colors in stock of this wonderful material.

As I said,not much of tying but here´s two.The second is inspirated from Nils Master 03 color,and even if silver/black was outstanding last season I landed many pikes with this kind of colors too.

And the 03:

Watched the newest Fly VS Jerk 4 Niklaus Bauer against Claes svartzonker here the other day and now I have to admit that it really burn inside me to go fishing,but still have to wait for about 6-8 weeks and still need to get a maintenance on my boat,Clean all my lines,tie a lot of tubes,make some leaders to them ETC,ETC and if I will be busy like this week at work the forthcoming two months will be over sooner that I even wanted :)

Mission tying corner

Everyone who knows me can surely say that two words,me and systematic doesn´t fit in same sentence.All of you who read this blog regularly has probably noticed that I now and then has started with different kind of cleaning or organization of my tying corner but always failed because of different reasons. Today I started to tie a fly but after I found it almost impossible to find anything from my table I suddenly just had enough. Jumped into my car and drove to a store and bought me some stuff that I thought I could use in Mission tying corner. Not much to tell about,it took me 11 hours to clean up all the mess that I started a long time ago. Here is some photos: First some pics from were I started:

I started my mission by clearing the table and then attach my "flyboard" on the wall.

Then it was time for some couple of shelves witch I bought today.This house is built in early 40´s so it was a little bit tricky because the walls was not so straight that I was hoping for but....I think they look okay :)

And this was followed by the hardest part of this mission,to sort out different materials in different boxes witch I also bought today.It took me more than a hour but finally I overcome even this part,while I was sorting I decided to change my "flyboard" to "flashboard" instead so I dont have to dig in boxes for them. Now...finally I´m ready.11.20 pm and once again I will go to sleep without some fly tying first but here´s the result of some organizing and I have to say that next time my fly tying will be much more fun.

Some tying and casting

Has been a quiet moment at work so I have had time to practice my casting skills and of course do some tying too.As I told you in my last post I found a nice pattern to tie (Tobbe Hedins fly)but the last one failed totally.My first mistake was that I forgot to add a second hackle (don´t even ask how I managed to do that :)). My second mistake was the head of the fly.I know that My Muddler heads could be good looking by some practicing but it feels a bit stupid to do a lot of work and spend a lot of material first and then ruin the whole fly with a head that´s look like doggy doo. I promised some photos too and here they are including THE head :)

On the fly in my last post I added straight away some Icelandic sheep but on this one I added first a bunch of Artic Fox 2XL to get a little bigger profile

Looking good so far..Isn´t it :).But here you can clearly see my mistake :/

And then the head that ruined this fly totally.Still decided to put the photo here on my blog so you can see that it isn´t easy all the time :)

Well,after I saw this photo I decided to Find an other solution for head,still don´t know how it will be looking in future,here is one proposal:

Also noticed that it seem to be hard to find Icelandic Sheep here in Finland,very few colors,after some study at internet I found a store in Poland Taimen.com and now I´m waiting for a parcel to arrive so I can tie some more of this pattern,also have some time to solve the head problem,meanwhile....

Have also practicing my casting skills in windy conditions with my brother using big flies with a lot of wind resistance and have to say that for me it feeling better and even my brother can get a fly out for about 15 meters now when he know the basics of double hauling.

Freezin´n´tyin

So now our thin snow blanket has turned to 60 cm thick and has covered whole Finland.We had a very heavy snowfall here the other day witch messed up the traffic here in southern parts of Finland,over 300 accidents in one day and I´m talkin about just around Helsinki. But now it´s seem to be time for the other mess with winter,it´s cold,and not just cold,it´s COLD !!! and while I was at work this Sunday morning I tried to figure out What do I hate most in winter,the cold or the snowfalls...Don´t know,both of them is not very high on my wishlist anyway.-36 degrees Celsius 04.00 AM at home and 8.35 AM -35 in Helsinki when I went home.

Well that´s all about weather complains,the Spring will be knockin on my door sooner or later. Have done some fly tying now and then when I haven´t been busy at work (witch I have been a lot). This one is a pattern I have tied for a while as you can see in my earlier posts and if someone doesn´t know yet it´s inspirated of Niklaus Bauers Sheephead-fly from flydressing.se

Tested it in my bath and I liked what I saw,hopefully the more important judges feel the same way. And this pattern is something I really like,it´s also inspired from the flydressing.se site and is tied by Tobbe Hedin and it´s called Ezza long hair. This is originally a Seatrout/Salmon fly but I changed some materials and made it bigger so I can call it a pure Pikefly :) It´s not the easiest fly to tie but still I´m gonna some more of these.

There is a lot of job in this fly that you cant see on this photo,I will take some more photos of the next one in middle of tying too but not some SBS shootout,if you want that there is a tying movie on flydressing.se site. Materials I´ve changed: Artic Fox ---> Icelandic Sheep. Schlappen ---> Marabou. Also left out those rubber legs simply because I don´t have any and also used different flash.otherway is tied pretty much the same way like in that movie. It´s not looks as good as Tobbes tying (not even close)But I´m satisfied with it anyway and this was my first attempt so..... :)At least I need some practicing with those Muddler heads.

With little help from a friend

So now we have about 50 cm:s snow in southern Finland and we get the whole package in two weeks.I have been at work most of the time so that´s why there have been no posts lately but the forecasts have promised a break from at least the heaviest snowfalls so I might get some rest and enjoy my hobby a while. I have also been a babysitter to my oldest daughters cat Hercules and I noticed that he also enjoyed my tying and at times drove me out of my mind. At least my younger daughter had fun while she took some photo shoots. Hey man,what are you doing? May I join your company? Oh FLYTYING...very interesting.

Don´t forget to add some Bucktail....DID YOU HEAR..BUCKTAIL...stupido....

Ok,now were on right track,I`ll take a look from the other side.

Why do have to be so nervous?Calm down man,I´ll just walk here in front of your face,keep on tying.

Ok.it look like you can handle it,hope you don´t mind if I rest here on your arm while you are finishing your fly.Hurry up,I´m hungry.

Even if it wasn´t the easiest way to tie a fly I´m pleased with the result:

And one more for the road:

Here´s two variants of same model,both have Bucktail under,one covered with Big Fly Fibre the other with Body fibre.Both have a nice movement in water.After that I added some Finn-Raccoon zonker in a loop and finalized the fly with one Marabou feather palmered round the tube. Oh yes,and a pair of Glow in the dark eyes from deercreek.

Winter time

While I´m writing this post we have finally got a blanket of snow even here in southern Finland so now I can with certainty say that my season is over and a long waiting has begun. So now there will be about 4 months time to tie flies,train my casting skills,meet friends or whatever come to my mind. Last year I felt sick not be able to go out fishing but now I feel relaxed,calm.It almost feel good to have a small break from fishing. Was here some days ago out on a windy field testing my new Vision Big Daddy rod with different lines and at same time I practiced casting in windy conditions. And guess what....I was not alone,you´ll never guess who was with me....My brother who use to fish with Jerk baits tried flycasting,and after a couple of hours training it looked okay,in fact pretty good.It was nice to see him so excited. After a short talk he bought himself a combo,the same combo that I started my flyfishing for pike with. The combo includes a Guideline ACT rod(9ft),a Guideline Reelmaster Reel and two Guideline Pike lines S3 and a floating.All in lineweight 8.Now he has trained all days and getting better all the time,looks like he has completely felt for this genre of fishing,wonder when he calls me asking to buy my old wise :). Wonder if there will be more Fly VS jerk anymore :)Anyway,I think he wait for the springtime as much as I did last year.

About tubes.

Have started to tie more and more flies on tube and I think it´s time to compare tubes and ordinary hook flies,whats good and whats bad with them. Want to point out that these thoughts are my own and not some absolutely truth,I don´t have enough experience to give anyone lessons :). Comparing tubes and let´s call them just hooks I find it easier to tie on a tube because I have more space on the "shaft" on tubes,I´m just tying the fly and cut of the rest of the tube witch is impossible on hooks.When I´m tying on hooks I always have to remember to keep the gap open. Of some reason I don´t feel comfortable to tie Zonker strips on tubes,maybe I´ll get over it someday ? Fishing with tubes......As I have told you earlier I have a slight feeling that I have dropped more fishes with tubes but as I also told you earlier I don´t have enough experience to say that it is so,it could be just bad luck or what ever but one thing is for sure,I will continue to fish with tubes,have tried some different hooks and still searching for the "best". The main advantage for tubes is their flexibility,you can wear different hooks,different sizes of them.Use tandem hooks,use barbless or not,all this on the same fly Also you can choose the position of the hook,more back,more in front,it´s all up to you.

One thing that I didn´t found much information about from internet was how to attach your tube to your line so I´m not sure if this is the "right" way have done like this so far but if someone will tell me some another way to do it I would be grateful. First of all I´ll take a nylon coated wire and make a loop in both ends and then melt the nylon with a lighter,oh yes and don´t forget to put a hook of your choice in one of the loops :).

And a photo of the hook+ loop.

Then put a silicon tube on the hook shank.

Then thread the wire trough your tube.....Strength the silicon tube on your fly tube.

Now were have a hook attached to our fly and the next step is to attach it to a mono line witch should have been attached to our fly line with a loop to loop connection. I have used a 60-100 cm long 0.50-0.70 line in witch I have again made loops in both ends. One important thing is to make a loop big enough to thread your fly trough it.

I use to secure the knots with Aquasure glue. Next step is to thread your mono loop through the wire loop.

After that thread the fly+hook through the mono loop.

Now it´s just to tighten the wire and the mono lines and that´s it.

As I said there might be better ways to do this but so far this have worked good enough for me.None of the attachments have let me down so far.