You can never know how big it can get! Just a light  touch to your fly, you  pause, pause, pause.. then strike and wow!,  your rod is bending deeper and deeper! Autumn is the time to go out if you are dreaming about big ones. Usually people are tended to think that October is the best month for green alligators here in Baltic states, but i would say its just the beginning for Pike Madness. Why Madness? Hm, maybe because usually people are siting next to the TV when there is cold and windy conditions outside, and not chasing the  fish by standing deep in the water or drifting with some boat around the lake, river or even sea. Sometimes it takes hundreds of casts to get a take, some times ten is enough, so you can never know when it will happen.

So, its Pike time, and i`m going to Sweden for the last time this year to chase a big pikes in shera garden, so i decided to put some info here about flies and other essentials to be successful.

Fly Mystery

Many newcomers to pike fly fishing think that good fly is major key to success. I would say in proper hands yes… What i mean with it, that pike fly is not just another fly…  At least for me, pike flies are like a lures for spin fisherman. When i am thinking about new flies I,m  always thinking about how they would swim, look and of coarse  how i must play with them. There are heavy (jig type) flies, suspenders,  deceivers, classical strip bunny’s and many more, each with its own behavior. Late Autumn pike fly for me is big or very big fly that i can play as slowly as possible.  It should move around like a jerk or even dead fish so that pike will get crazy as soon as fly appears. But… And this is the big difference with summer piking, that during the late autumn, pike are not so aggressive on takes. They can watch your fly for ten and even more seconds  maybe follow a little, and sometimes its all what you  expect.  Key to success is to be as slow and as interesting with your strips as possible. That is the reason why may flies are not heavy, at least if i`m fishing in typical mid depth spots.  After the strip  fly should not go down like a hammer, so you can wait and then play with it again in the same layer. Pike is nice fish for us, not only because it is big and take our flies time after time,but also because these fish are always looking up. Even if  your fly is hanging just below the surface in the deeper spot, you can be 100% sure, that if the pike will like how your fly is dancing it will rise and take.  So if you are out, prepare the neutral density flies, so you can adjust to the layer you would like to fish, without grasping the bottom all the time.  I adjust float ability of my flies by adding the  foam,  dear hair or sometimes other material that are tooth resistant. Also it is quite important to use a body materials without natural wool in them. Not only because these flies  become extremely heavy hence absorbing a lot of water, but also because pikes tooth can stuck in the wool and by this prevent a proper hook up of the fish. During the last years i use mainly synthetic materials for  my pike flies, and from natural ones i still like  the buck tail, ostrich or big feathers from a capes. Here I have attached some flies i`m currently using, so you can judge by yourself what is what.

Landing the monster

OK,  finally you have a monster on the other end of your fly line, how you are going to land it? If you are an expert you can land the big croc with your hand by grabbing it by the lower jaw (from below of coarse!), but if you are a novice or you dont like to risk you can use the boga grip. These tools, especially made for salt water big game usage, are pricey and cheaper ones designed for pike are sometimes hard to get. Last Autumn i found a solution by redesigning some  plastic tool from carpenters shop. It was just  30 cents worth and was handling a pike only a little bit worse than original ones. To redesign it you should remove the orange plastic jaws, cut the sides like in a picture, and mount them back.  So, you are ready to get first 30 ponder  with the 30 euro cent boga grip!

You better get prepared, crocks are waiting!

Here come the flies

Tags: Pike

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 01:21 and is filed under Fly fishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.