My corruption of Herman Botes’ Papa Roach has come up in conversation quite a bit lately. It’s fair to ask why on earth I would tamper with this damn near perfect stillwater trout fly, but in my case the answer is simple: you absolutely don’t have to, but … you can. While I do believe [...]
Deadly on stillwaters, but essential in pretty much any freshwater fly box, the Skinny Damsel also covers many essential fly tying techniques and tips. In this quick video, Gordon van der Spuy, aka The Feather Mechanic, shows us how to tie the Skinny Damsel. For more on this pattern and other brilliant fly tying advice, [...]
You're standing right above them, on a bridge, the water is crystal clear and about a metre deep. Its flowing quite strongly and the carp are sifting along the bottom, nose into the oncoming current. We've all been tempted to drop a fly off a bridge somewhere along the line, we can see fish clearly [...]
April 2005 I was fortunate, along with my late old man, to wrangle our way on to the first FlyCastaway "PAYDIRT" trip... 14 Anglers, 2 Guides... 2 weeks, two Seychelles outer Atolls which at that stage had virtually never been fished.. or if they had, it was VERY little... Cosmoledo for a week, and then [...]
My love affair with Bucktail is certainly no secret to anyone who knows me... some may call it a love affair, some may call it an obsession.. and others may just call it flat out laziness in finding something you like and just sticking with it and not learning any new shit! Either [...]
Words and photos thanks to Rex Fey. Step 1: Hook #12. Tie in a thick yarn tail that will be trimmed into an extended hotspot body. Step 2: Spin the body with deer hair. You will have to spread the deer hair around the tail before you spin it. It won’t spin [...]
Words and photos courtesy of Rex Fey Step 1: Use a #14-16 hook as this is intended to be a juicy meal of a fly, and it’s very difficult to tie this fly on smaller than #16. Bed the hook and tie in a 3 long tail fibers. I have used mongoose hairs for [...]
