Pike on the Fly

After catching a whole host of species on the fly rod, I am now tempted to try for pike. Any advice on rods, lines, reels and flies would be welcome. I have acces to some really good pike water where I live, including fenland drains

There are several articles on this at

http://predator-fishing.co.uk

Ron, several worthwhile approaches to Pike on the fly.
My prime attack is with a Greys 9 foot Esox Fly that throws a 10 weight line. I use a Dragonfly kingsize for the reel (best value disc drag reel I could find) and the Masterline Toothy Critter Intermediate pike fly lines in a 10 weight. 100 yards of 30 pound backing completes the set up. I fish mainly large windswept Lochs, so I need the beefy set up to cast my flies, which I tie myself. I guess the flies range from 4 to 9 inches in length.

My lighter outfit is a 10 foot 7/8 weight Normark Norboron rod matched with another Dragonfly and a cortland 444 nymph tip 8 weight line. The line is cut back about 18 inches to aid fly turnover. I use this for light streamers, smaller flies and surface poppers.

Talk to many American anglers and they will recommend streamers. They are great for casting into the wind etc, but I do tend to dress a more "macho" fly. I like Bunny Bugs, Dalberg divers, BIG muddlers etc, and I have a few "creations" of my own design. These mainly contain a large deerhair head with eyes and either a long wing of bucktail/peacock/lureflash, or up to 12 saddle/schlappen feathers tied to flare out. Another successful addition is the use of unravelled Mylar tubing. A game angler here in Scotland was the first person to use it, I believe (Barry Duffy) U dress a fly with just a hair wing, no body, then tie in a 6-9 inch length of mylar for a tail. Unraval all but the last inch closest to the hook. Add a collar of varnish/super glue to prevent the myler from unravelling more. It looks great in the water. Add eyes and away u go. If that makes sense.

For traces I use two meaterials. One is a kevlar braid that used to me marketed by Olympic. It only just sinks and so I use it with lighter flies. It can be knotted like mono and it is semi stiff. The other is the Fox soft wire. Its only good for one fish really, but its nice and thin/light. All traces have a small clip one end and a small solid stainless ring the other. Never try and attach wire direct to nylon leaders!

In spring through to autumn, I tend to fish the surface layers, down to about 3 feet, winter, I drag the bottom. Retrieve can be anything, like triut, u need to find what they are doing on the day.

Another thing....Match the hatch! If Pike are striking at 4 inch Perch, dont cast a 7 inch orange lure at them. If the water has a large head of 6 inch roach, fish a fly that looks like a 6 inch roach! I have found they wise up pretty quickly to large gaudy flies...so try changing flies regularly...

Well...I hope that helps....

Many thanks Rob. Now I must go and get me a strong rod. I have a new Dragonfly Large Arbour reel which should be ideal for the job.

Must also get some decent hooks I have tied Dahlberg Divers before - an excellent largemouth bass fly. I've caught several salt water species on Lefty's Decievers

Rob,
How about an article for FM?? on this subject i'm sure Graham would welcome it.

Certainly would. Get tapping on that keyboard Rob!

Graham, I would love too, how do I go about it??

Just e-mail it to me, and I'll take care of it from there.

Thanks

Graham

okidoki...give me a couple of days to get sorted...any particular format? (I'm a designer so have access to a large amount of programes etc...and a digital camera, so i will include pics of flies etc)

That's great Rob. You can send it as a Word.doc (or practically any other text file) attachment to an e-mail, or as a straightforward e-mail. I prefer a Word.doc attachment where there's a choice but it doesn't matter providing the words get to me in anything other than handwriting.

Digital pictures are great. These are best as JPEG format and no more than about 100k in size and sent as attachments to an e-mail.

If anyone else would like to contribute anything and haven't got access to a digital camera or scanner they can always post things via Royal Mail in the old fashioned way.

Don't forget, there's at least a bulk spool of line for all major contributors and a chance of winning a major contributor of the month award.

Nice one Rob...can you include the max size fly that is usually acceptable to trout waters with Pike in them....or is that dependant on the water.
I'm begining to look forward to fly and lure fishing for Pike, must be something to do with my age!!!!!

Funny, fly fishing in South Africa tends to attract young macho types with golden tans and rippling muscles. It's a great phallic symbol the fly rod you know.

I know, I have to fight 'em off every time I get mine out.

Careful fellas ....might attract the wrong crowd )

Paul, I think you will find that the max fly size will depend on the waters u fish. However, some water will only allow a max size of 10....to match compitition rules.

I thought something along those lines Rob, cheers, BTW fellas have you a red face "sterny" telling you to report this thread to the moderator, whats all that about?

It's a new 'safety' device at the bottom of every forum page that will let me know, if for some reason I've missed it, through your good selves, that somebody is abusing the forum in one way or another.

Just click on the 'face' and write your message and it will be e-mailed direct to me.

Hi there,
just been reading the letters on fly fishing for pike. I have also been dabbling with this method, and I have found that it's an extreamly good method on those hard days. When pike are not taking baits, a streamer is the method hands down. On those type of days when the pike are not feeding, the only real chance you have is on a suttle fished fly. When the pike are feeding hard of course you can catch loads of pike on this method too. But i usualy fish baits when they are feeding hard like on an cold front approaching. When the cold front is with us and it's forecasted to go milder again not colder then fish the fly if you must go and you'll have the best method for those weather conditions, also it's dam good fun.

Hi,
Mark Leathwood has got me to try fly fishing for pike on the Bridgewater Canal.I got the required tackle and "obtained" some of Mark's flies.Went today for the first time today and caught a small pike. It feels great to go fishing
with minimal tackle and catch a fish first try of a new method.

Robert you have just described one of the greatest moments in angling. Discovery that a new method works.

Have fun.