Making sea trout flies

Every winter it is the same, I promise myself I will do a bit of sea trout fishing next year and by the end of the season I find I have not been out nearly enough to angle for these fabulous wee fish. A large part of that is because here in the west most […]

Tying with Nils

At the vice again this morning with the record player getting a spin to keep my spirits up. Maybe a bit of Nils Lofgren to start with. I should explain that I spent yesterday sorting out the mind-numbing jumble of old vinyl and CDs that littered the spare room and got them into some sort […]

Repurposing

€5. A fiver. That’s all I spent to buy a box of old flies and lures on fleabay. There were some photos to accompany the listing and staring at it I homed in on one fly in particular. It was tied with feather which are rarely available these days. The blue elver fly is a […]

Golden Olive Shrimp

A confession first – this is not one of my own patterns. It was devised by my boat partner and top salmon angler Ben Baynes a few seasons ago. Since then, it has become a firm favourite with anglers on loughs such as Beltra and Carrowmor. As shrimp flies go it is pretty simple to […]

The Crunchie Shrimp

I first tied this fly more years ago than I care to remember. I had read somewhere about using sweet wrappers to form the bodies on flies and experimented with a couple of ideas. This was pre-multi-coloured holo tinsel days and a box of Cadbury’s chocolates provided some pink, blue and red shiny wrappers. None […]