its for "charity" innit - the unfamous fly

Christmas is the time for giving and it always seems appropriate to do something for charity.

I like to try fish the Swanswater Charity fishing competition between Christmas and New Year where the proceeds are donated to Strathcarron Hospice. On top of the angling there is usually a very well supplied raffle where all the anglers donate some stuff, everything from a 6 pack of beer to nice whiskeys and boxes of flies.

I decided, as I was doing a lot more tying this year, that I would make a few extra as I went along and make up a box of flies for the raffle. Now I am not the best fly tier in the world but I use all my own and they catch me fish so hopefully they will work for someone else. Hopefully I get along to the competition and it goes ahead, if not it will be donated to some other worthy cause.

So here it is , the unfamous fly charity fly collection. 143 flies for use in all sorts of situations. There are bushy wet flies, spiders. buzzers, Diawl Bachs, Crunchers, Shuttlecock Buzzers, Egg Flies, Blobs, Boobies and Bungs, Dries, Lures, Tenkara Sekasi Kebari, Grayling Bugs and Cormorants.

140 odd flies all tied by the unfamous fly for Charity

Hopefully they will be a worthwhile prize for someone in the raffle.

Then a few days back I heard that Munro at Tinto Trout Fishery was putting together a collection of “pink” bugs for the Grayling to be auctioned or raffled in aid of Casting for Recovery. All had to have a pink theme both in terms of the relationship to CfR and Breast Cancer Recovery but also we all know Grayling love a bit of pink and its that time of year. So I have done ten Grayling flies, a pink variant of the Red Tag Jig Bug, a pink beaded possum bug, pink shrimps, Pink jelly bugs and just for something different a pair of “Pinkhammers”, Klinkhammers tied in Pink LiteBrite, Pink Herl and Pink Aero WIng on Partridge Klinkhammer hooks. You might have seen Matt Hayes use something like this on Wild Fisherman Norway a few weeks ago when he caught a Grayling first Cast with it! While its not dry fly weather they can be used to fish as indicator flies on a NZ rig in winter and you never know a fish might take the dry.