Rant
Ok
im going to get this out the way first because it’s top of my what a complete
doughnut list and this kind of thing really pisses me off an ultimately damages
the image of our sport, if you don’t want to read this then skip this section.
I
was browsing the net looking at pike flies (yea sad I know) and I came across
this picture below what a disgraceful way to treat a fish , my first thoughts
were obviously a trout angler who knows no better but then I was shocked to
follow the link to of all things a match angling website that had an article on
pike fly fishing now I’m sorry but I can’t think of anything worse that a pike
fly fishing article written by a trout fisherman for a match angling website ,
for one they hate pike with a vengeance and usually knock em on the head , I
was intrigued by why on earth this had appeared on this website, so eager to
see if I could learn anything from this idiot I followed the link to the full
article Jesus I wish I hadn’t
Now
as anyone knows I sell pike flies now and again and to be honest I really don’t
care where you get your flies from if you do indeed buy them there are some
fantastic guys out there tying flies and there is some absolute garbage out
there that falls apart after a couple of fish that are made by trout company’s
in Africa (hello arkwrights mill) in fact these things are probably designed to
fall apart as Mr corporate fly company wants you to keep buying them I mean
come on people what does the guy in a hut in Africa know about pike , I’ll tell
ya jack crap that’s what , and this leads
me nicely back to this bone head and his article because then I found
this picture
Ok
so even the entry level pike fly fisher will have done some digging around on
the internet for information on how to rig up pike flies or even asked in a forum
somewhere out there in internet land I mean if your embarrassed about asking
these kind of questions you can sign up using a fake name and folks are usually
very forthcoming in the fly fishing world when it comes to helping newbies out
, so really there’s no excuse for the dogs breakfast rig above as anybody would
have told him the correct connection to use .
What
this jackass has done is simply not bothered his backside and just thought “dhu
that looks right” when in fact the clip above will fail at some point that’s
100% certain any kind of pressure from a decent or even smaller jack will just
pull this open and hey presto Einstein you’ve got a pike swimming around with a
new piece of jewellery even worse if it has taken it deep down unbelievable
that this guy is also pluggin his own made in Africa cheap garbage pike flies.
No
don’t get me wrong I really don’t care where you get your pike flies from all
I’m concerned about is not getting a bum deal from, A-flies that fall apart
after a fish , B – getting them from people who know jack about the species as
Cleary this nut sack doesn’t know anything about pike or predators so please be
carefull out there and don’t listen to some of the tripe that’s written out
there especially from this village idiot ,
Now
clearly I can’t name companies due to legal reasons but please be very careful
when you buy fliesonline . Please feel free to share that picture at the top
it’s a disgrace and it’s most defiantly not a pike flyfisher
---------------------
And
so to fishing I had a day out with wonderful fishing buddy and fellow heavy
metal nut job conan last week, we have been on about fishing together for a
while now and he was very keen to catch his first pike on the fly so I was more
than happy to help him out and we finally got out on the water on a fine but
somewhat windy day and as luck would have it, it was blowing in completely the
direction I didnt want it to but I thought we would still give it a shot and if
all else failed I had a secret weapon to try , so the boat was loaded up and we
headed to a couple of spots that I knew he would get a fish or two and get him
over to the dark side
No
sooner had we done a couple of drifts conan was into his first pike on the fly
and you can tell by the look on his face he was somewhat impressed at the
fighting abilities of these fish even small fish give you a good fight I think
he can now see what I was banging on about conan new pb pike 7lb ……that’s
another one converted then see ya next week pal
A
new spot to try time I think , we had 13 fish to the boat so I wanted to rest
the area for a bit so I decided to try a shallow area that leads into a drop
off , always a good feature when pike fishing so we headed of and found the
spot I wanted , I changed the fly over to a big natural ken capsey tallywacker
design although mine had a loose spun deerhair head this thing looks awesome in
the water and really creates a whole loada noise and perfect on a slow
intermediate line over shallow water
I
tried this fly for a while but seems like they weren’t having it with the big
flies so it was back onto the small gliss and glint patterns , strange this
place they seem to prefer tiny flies as straight away I had a follow , ok you
could argue that the fish was already in area after seeing the big fly swanning
about just under the surface but I just think they like smaller patterns here ,
probably due to the number of sticklebacks in the place that they gorge
themselves on who knows that’s fishing nice spot though will try it again , so
by the end of the day we had 13 fish in the boat and maybe 30 plus follows to
the side of the boat , conan was impressed and converted to this style of
fishing , I suspect I may have unleashed a beast there as he left my house he
was mumbling about hooks and materials all in all a great day in great company
So here’s the little
fish catching machine they were all going crazy for nothing complicated just a
small around 4 inches long (small by pike fly standards) well if that’s what
was catching them well that’s what I’m going to use, if you haven’t used gliss
and glint plus before it’s like sf fiber but a lot softer and I believe more
movement than sf , I still use sf now and again and im certainly not
discounting it as a material but for my needs deercreeks gliss and glint plus
suits me a lot better and to be honest I’ve had more success with it than sf
with the predators
A thorny topic of debate times 2
Ok
so just to get the cat amongst the pigeons and purists spitting there
breakfasts all over there screens here’s a thing I do when I’m going from one
area to another I stick out a trolling fly yes I know I know it bears little
resemblance to any kind of living creature but it works ,
What
I do is have a spare rod set up with an intermediate line and a trolling fly then
I set off to my next location I can slowly drag this behind the boat and a lot of
the time I will pick up bonus fish now this sometimes can make the difference
between blanking or not and I would rather catch something even if it is a
bonus fish on one of these things.
Now
ok so not technically fly fishing as a point of order the method is quite
simple once under way a few casts to launch the thing sideways away from the
boat (not out the back)and strip a good length of your main fly line off .
Almost down to the backing then the line will be taken up by the speed of the
motor (2 in an electric) and will hoover a few feet of the bottom in 10 ft of
water right out the back of the boat, the faster you go the shallower the fly
will run the slower the deeper it will run, always have your rod pointing at
the fly and your drag set so it’s not going pull the rod from your hand when
you get a hit , by doing it this way your other hand can control the outboard
so when you do get a strike you can kill the engine and hit the fish in a split
second although with circle hooks the fish hook themselves anyway.
*I
think this is quite a valid way to catch fish on a fly rod although somewhat
unorthodox a method
Debate times 2
Circle
hooks yup circle hooks I really don’t understand why more anglers don’t use
them for predator flies in this country I mean ultimately they are the most
fish friendly hook out there and that’s what we want minimal damage to our prey
so I find the lack of use of circle quite surprising, I think the main reason is
they don’t look like a “proper hook” in fact fast flies had to give a guy a refund because
he said the hook point was bent and simply wouldn’t accept that was the design
of the hook , he was even directed to a video explaining the use of the hook
but he still insisted that it was a dodgy hook ,
I use
circle hooks quite a lot and find they make fantastic fly hooks but it’s going
to take a while to change people’s opinions but take a look at the pictures
where is the hook position is I have found that this is pretty much standard
when hooking fish and isn’t that what you want every time a clean hooked fish
that can be realised very quickly and without damage.
Circle
hooks come in loads of sizes and various wires from lightweight to the heavy
tuna circles (too heavy for pike flies) and the picture below you can see there
is enough shank to get enough material on, you know all those times when a fish
throws the hook well this hook considerably cuts that lost fish total by a very
large margin.
The
only down side I found was that they are not really suited to traditional fly
boxes and are better in compartment boxes , but this is only a small problem
and most people can fit a compartment box in their bags or boxes give them a try I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly
surprised
Diamond
hard uv completely tack free still amazes me how good this stuff is, if of
course you want something that is still tacky after curing please Google bug
bond
See
ya on the water
Mcfluffchucker
(Doing
it longer than some people have been on the planet in a cave in Scotland)
Posts
