Flicking feathers

  The light partridge and yellow really is a deadly North country spider. Despite its simplicity, this fly is a great taker of both trout and grayling and frankly, the partridge and yellow should be in every river angler's box. To support the channel and be eligible for giveaways head to https://www.patreon.com/flickingfeathers and become a patron or support through paypal.me/flickingfeathers Materials list Hook: Kamasan B170 size 14 Thread: Yellow silk (waxed) Hackle: Grey speckled partridge

  Paul and Nick are back, this time discussing the elements that make up casting 100 feet plus. It’s starting to get exciting…

  At the International Fly Fishing Show 2017 Indonesia Paul Arden of Sexyloops conducts a workshop to help prepare the casting instructor candidates

  Over the last few years I've been tying more and more flies with snowshoe hare, either as a wing material, dubbing or both. It's a great material that I think is underrated, taking a back seat to CDC, synthetics or deer hair. The more I use snowshoe, the more I like it. I can almost see it replacing all other dry fly wing materials completely in my own box... almost. It's very buoyant, it'll do a better job of floating a dry fly (and a nymph) than CDC and most synthetics and is probably on a par with deer hair. It's tough, much tougher than deer hair or CDC. Obviously synthetic yarns are more durable, but there's not much in it and it doesn't matter as both will likely outlast hackles and tails. It doesn't need much looking after while fishing. This is a big one for me, I don't want to be spending ages trying to get slime off of a fly then drying it, primping it back into shape and reapplying floatant. Snowshoe is so easy to clean, fish slime just

  Last week I wrote a bit about Tummel flies and made a video of Tod's No.1, a friend sent me an article by Dave Westwood from a Dutch website (although it does look have the look of FF&FT from the late 1990s) which seems to be about the only other modern information available. It's fairly good so I thought I'd share it here, the more people know about them the more chance this stuff has to be preserved. Dave's Article One of the points made in the article is about using fine modern threads, I'm guessing from the dates that he's referring to Uni 8/0 or UTC 70 rather than the super fine gsp stuff available now. It got me thinking about something I had said in the video for Tod's fly; you don't have to use silks, but they'll help make you a better fly tyer. I don't disagree with what Dave said, and I often use modern thread for old spider patterns, especially when there's no modern silk that matches the old Pearsall's colours. They are

  Frank Sawyer's Killer bug is as effective now as ever, it's a quick, durable tie that works year round for trout and grayling in all kinds of waters from chalkstreams to peaty freestones. To support my channel and enter the giveaways head to https://www.patreon.com/flickingfeathers and become a patron or support through paypal.me/flickingfeathers Materials list Hook: B170/B175 or similar size 12-16 Thread: Dark reddish copper wire Body: Chadwick's 477 sub- any brownish, pinky grey yarn

  Last week fly fishing the Malaysian Jungle for Giant Snakehead using George’s fly.

  I've been tying river wet flies for a friend this week, mostly spiders. I really like tying them and was particularly pleased when he asked me to stick some Tummel style flies in with the rest. I like Tummel style. I like all the traditional river wets, Clyde, Tweed and North Counrty, but I there's something about the Tummel style that just works for me somehow. Now, unless you're from the UK or a student of traditional flies, you may not be that familiar with Tummel style flies. It's not surprising as they rarely seem to be written about. It's not cause they're not good flies though, they're just forgotten. The same could probably be said for Tweed style flies though clyde style patterns seem to be a bit better known. Most of the stuff I see is North Country spiders, mostly from Yorkshiremen, and flymphs. This probably has something to do with the style itself. Tummel style flies are really for the extremophiles among us, they are incredibly spartan in th

 An old one I wrote for www.sexyloops.com Just a quick one from me this week, I almost forgot as the days are blurring into each other. It's been too cold for much in the way of fishing here, I could have gone out for carp but it's been consistently below zero over night for the past couple of weeks, better just to stay home with a mince pie, mess around with the fishing stuff, make some inroads on my book of carp flies and try to plan what the coming year will bring. If things start normalising a bit more I might make it over to Malaysia to see Paul, drink some whisky and miss shots at snakehead. I'd also like to get back to Scotland for a month or so, see family head to the Hebrides for some machair loch browns, hit Loch Lomond and a few others for pike and spend some days chasing grayling on the Tweed. But who knows, it seems like the travel regulations are changing all the time here: maybe we can leave, maybe we can get back in, maybe we'll have to quarantine in a h

  A short student video showing the movement differences between OSD and 170 backcasts

  A video on the elements of the 170 and uses of both back and forward cast stopless deliveries. Filmed in a jungle near you.

  The Walt's & Sexy Walt's are super easy, super quick, super effective little nymph pattern that catches fish everywhere. Adjust the size, weight bead colours to suit your fishing. To support my channel and enter the giveaways head to https://www.patreon.com/flickingfeathers and become a patron or support through paypal.me/flickingfeathers Materials list Walt's Worm Hook: Jig 10-20 Weight: Slotted tungsten bead Thread: 8/0 Brown or dun Body: Hare's ear or squirrel Sexy Walt's Hook: Jig 10-20 Weight: Slotted tungsten bead Thread: 8/0 FL orange, green, red or pink Body: Hare's ear or squirrel Rib: Mirage tinsel

An old one I wrote for sexyloops.com   It's that time of year again, a time of cheer and goodwill to all men and, unfortunately, for the redd caught browns to start showing up on intagram. It took a bit longer than last year for me to notice. Probably because most of the higher profile culprits have blocked me for calling it out over the last few years. I don't think people will ever completely stop fishing for spawning fish and kelts, whether because of ignorance or greed. It is something that can be reduced though, I'm sure a lot of inexperienced angler's who catch fish on redds don't realise what they're doing and if given the opportunity to learn, would change their behaviour.  Some in the States try to justify it by saying browns are invasives, but that's bullshit. If they cared about that they'd be killing the fish and backing a removal programme.  The thing is, when you see these posts online you'll also see comments of encouragement from the

  Eyes, do they make a difference? Some say no, some say yes and some are agnostic. Then there are the people who believe in them but wonder what the point is because their eyes always fall off. I think eyes make a difference, or rather several differences. Yes I'm pretty sure that for some species an eye on a baitfish pattern is, or can be the difference between an eat and a refusal. I think this is especially true of small bait imitations. A lot of small minnows have very prominent eyes and it probably makes sense to imitate them. Of course there's no way of truly proving that fish that eats a fly with an eye wouldn't have eaten a blind one, but I've been in situations where I'm sure it has made the difference. But really I don't think that's the most important difference when it comes to eyes. Not least because although eyes might give the angler confidence we'll never know for sure if it really mattered. So what is important? Well, the things that ar

  Perdigons have become firmly established as essential river nymphs. These super simple body quill versions are quick, easy ties that are ideal when the fish prefer a more drab offering rather than the tinsel based patterns You sometimes see these under other names such as the Spanish bullet, but I see no reason to change the name from the original. To support my channel and enter the giveaways head to https://www.patreon.com/flickingfeathers and become a patron or support through paypal.me/flickingfeathers I strongly recommend a salon style UV lamp to give these and all your UV resin flies a final cure for a hard, clear tack free finish regardless of the brand resin you use Amazon https://amzn.to/3qTXqiH Amazon UK https://amzn.to/3fSw9qM Materials list Hook: Jig or nymph hook 14 -20 Thread: Body quill Weight: Tungsten bead Tail: Coq de Leon Thorax cover: Black varnish Book of the Month 10 "Essential Saltwater Flies" is available here; Amazon https://amzn.to/3zGD

Exercises and components to go from a 50’ to a 70’ cast as part of a distance casting series. This is the first episode. With Paul Arden and Nick Moore from Sexyloops  

  The first leg of my winter seabass season has come to a close as the fish will be moving out to the open sea over the next week or two as they get ready to spawn, they won't be back till January sometime. It's been interesting as we've been experimenting with some very big flies. I'm not sure the really big flies are that necessary. Naturally I've caught fewer fish than normal, but that was to be expected. I have caught a few nice bass and come into contact with a couple of huge fish, most notably one that would have smashed my PB which was lost at the net. The isssue is, I've not caught any more big fish than usual. In fact, some of the best fish I have caught came to the usual 7-20cm flies. This week for example I caught a beautifully conditioned 65cm bass on a little rubber candy, a second 67cm fish came to a 20cm Sedotti slammer. I spent at least half of the trip fishing a 30cm topwater fly for one chase from a fish that either missed or rejected on the ea

 Another oldie from loops.. Both Nick and Paul's posts this week chimed with something I've been thinking about recently, a lot of people criticise methods, it could be the bung, Euro nymphing, the booby or anything else. Often it's a sort of knee-jerk response because they don't understand it, or maybe it's envy at the success of another angler, sometimes it's because of the way a lot of people use the method in question. I'm far from a purist, just yesterday I was fitting large willow leaf spinner blades to some topwater gamechangers in a bid to make them a bit noisier! I'll gladly fish the bung, a booby or a Euro rig-I even use a beefed up french leader for small stream carping! I've no time for the moans from old-usually American- men complaining that Euro nymphing isn't flyfishing, or isn't new and they've been doing it for 60 years. The second complaint in particular just screams to me that they don't understand the method(s) Th