Pike flies

I started playing with the stuff I got from Rich this afternoon. I already knew his Kustom Fibre from a fishing friend who uses it a lot (Renzo Callebert). In fact you can find a tutorial on one of Renzo’s flies on Rich his site www.kustom-flyz.com 

(and while you're there, check out all the nice stuff Rich sells as well).

It looks a lot like Slinky Fibre but it’s thinner (and therefore not so stiff), so it has a livelier  action in the water. Therefore, I definitely wanted to use it as tail material. The only problem was to find a pattern where this stuff could wiggle as much as possible.

Then I came across some flies I tied a while ago, and used this as a base for this pattern.

These flies are all about 15 cm long, tied on a Gamakatsu Worm 36, size 5/0.

This is a basic version of a ‘Jellybelly’, from one of the guys from Piketrek (you can find a tutorial on Youtube). I find the original unnecessarily difficult to tie, so I’ve made my own adaptation.

- I started with tying in light pink Polar Flash (tied in at half the length, then folded back the excess and tied this in as well) along the bottom of the hook shank (in 8 steps) up to 1 cm before the hook eye (and cut this into shape afterwards).

- then I tied in a single bunch of Rich’s Purple Blend Kustom Fibre. I tied it in 2/3 facing backwards and 1/3 forwards. Then folded back the excess and tied it in as well (and cut this into shape afterwards).

- then some of his Flash Blend (purple/black).

- some of his ‘Realistic Flyz Eyez’ (which look really awesome).

- and finally made a head with UV Clear Fly Finnish.

This is exactly the same pattern.

- I just used light green Polar Flash for the (Jelly) belly.

- then Kustom Flash Blend (this stuff is not yet on his site, but I think it’s a blend of his Lime Green Kustom Fibre with his Green/Gold Kustom Flyz Angel Hair).

- for the next step,

I wanted to use a darker kind of green that would still go along with the rest of the fly. The picture is a bit overexposed, but I’ve used Seaweed Slinky Fibre and blended it myself with Rich’s Green/Gold Kustom Flyz Angel Hair.

- and Green/Silver Kustom Eyez.

The same again here.

- light blue Polar Flash.

- Kustom Flash Blend (I think it’s Sea Blue Kustom Fibre with UV Violet Kustom Flyz Angel Hair).

- for the next step, I’ve blended the Blend of the last step with his Peacock Angel Hair.

- and Realistic Flyz Eyez.

I’ve been tying mainly with natural materials for a while now, so it feels good to use synthetics again (certainly this stuff), so you can expect a lot more to come…