Life on the water
The
date was set for a day on the water with newly converted pike fly fisher and
fellow metal head conan , so the day before I started to get my boat kit
together and I also checked on the weather
which was telling me it was going to be el scorcheo (bloody hot) now
when I saw that I was absolutely delighted , why I hear you cry it’s not
exactly the best for pike fishing , well
strangely enough some of my best days have been in very bright hot conditions ,
and I know other pike anglers who don’t fly fish say you do the fish damage in
very hot weather as the fight is to long you can’t get them in fast enough etc. etc.
Well
with the range of tackle that’s out there now that’s simply not the case and
fish can be bought to the net very quickly without any stress to the fish and
to be honest I’ve never had a fish go belly up due to being fly caught so don’t
believe what you hear I firmly believe more damage is done by inexperienced
pike anglers with dirty great trebles than is done by any fly angler with a
single hook but then if you don’t want to harm then then the best thing to do
is not fish for them but I suppose that’s a whole another debate.So here is my boat kit stacked and ready to go
Ok
I do tend to take way loads of kit with me on a boat probably more than is
needed but with loving fly tying i do like to see how new patterns work so I
tend to take a lot with me, in the photo above you will see my main boat box, a
couple of rods one floating line one intermediate (means I can change quickly
if I need to) a large net , well you never know what that next fish will be ,
and I also have a green day bag which has lunch drinks etc. and some wet
weather gear (this is Scotland) and because its going to be well hot I also
included a box of subbugs for some top water
crazy stuff, boat partner for the day conan had never had the experience
of a pike hitting a top water an today looked like it was going to be
perfect for it ……..
A
box of bugs and some smaller more trad poppers in case I needed to go more
subtle but the contents of the box above will catch pretty much anything out
there that will take a surface lure my subbugs have taken to clients muskies ,
largemouths , gts , northerns , stripers even bull trout so they do catch
bucket loads and always good to have a few in the box even if you’re not
planning a top water trip as you can still work em on intermediate and sinking
lines
The contents of the box of doom
To
the right hand side I keep a couple of plastic lock boxes with my spare spools
and leader material , on top of this is my unhooking gear next to the left is a
massive finsport wallet (a present from brother pike jedi ken capsey from
Vermont fly guys/pike adventures) this is just stuffed with all sorts of flies
, the rest of the bottom of the box is made up of plastic sectioned lure boxes
with various material flies by box (one box naturals one box gliss and glint
plus etc) this makes it easier to find a
certain pattern if I need it. On top the blue box is clouser minnows and next
to it I have a large sectioned plastic box, this contains all my clips and swivels
in size order. The small sectioned box on top of that contains prototype flies
to be tested , inside the lid I have a large foam sheet that I keep a range of
my go to flies on and also it serves as a drying pad , oh and there’s my
sunglasses also in the case .
I
had 2 outfits for today one was my intermediate outfit (the black butt) which
has an intermediate 10wgt shooting head on it, this is an amazing outfit and I
can shoot a hellava line with it , some of my buddys have tried it but don’t
like it but each to their own , ive tried some of their top notch top of the
range stuff but it has yet to feel as comfortable as my saber outfit.
The
second outfit for the day was to be a subbug kit, again consists of a pike
saber matched with a greys reel and a 10wgt rio pike and musky floating line
(ignore the sticker I really should take it off) this throws a bug to horizon
lovely bit of kit
To
the fishing
When we got there it was
like a scean from a movie half expected wallace to come out of the mist well by
the time we got up to the spot the mist had really come down and although the
sun wasn’t breaking through the surface was very calm so we decide to go with
small bait fish patterns on the intermediate line ,we had done well with these
before here a few weeks ago so was worth a try to get the scoring card open .
However after a few casts
it was clear that the weed had gone nuts in the previous week that we wernt
here and was almost a foot below the surface in 6 foot of water so I decided to
change us over to subbugs , these are the conditions that they were made for ,
conan had no previous experience of fishing these big bugs and I think he found
it hard to belive that something would hit this atrocity splashing and gliding
its way back to the boat (sorry to scare ya pal) this aint no casting size 24
dry flies to easily spooked trout , but after a quick 5 min lesson he got it and
I recast and the big bumblebee subbug hit the water with a resonding smack.
now 2 things happened at this point one was
that conan said nice cast I turned in the very same second to thank him and we
both turned our heads at the same time to where the bug had come down , at the
very same instant we did that a rather large double figure snaggletooth came
exploding out the water with my bug firmly clamped in its mouth , the thing was
pissed and conans face was a picture as it cleared 5ft out of the water shaking
its head like a scalded marlin it
entered the water at a monster rate exploding the surface and then dived
deep in the weed and promptly threw the hook , I turned and looked at conan
what was standing there with his mouth open and words that id never heard
before came streaming out . I just fell about laughing suspecting that conan
was now a convert to the jedi way of the top.
That will do nicley
Once I had regained my
composure and explained to conan that with topwater pike fishing your lucky to
actually get 1 in free to the boat and that sometimes although its nice to get
a tophy shot most of the fun is in the hit with this method and with that I
chucked the bug out again into the mist , after a couple of pulls this fine
fish also decided to launch itself skywards with bug hanging out its mouth ,
this time I had better control and despite a couple of heart stopping momments
in the weed I netted it and broke in to grin subbugin you gotta love it 2 fish
2 casts hell yea .
So after the obligatary photos
we got to fishing again and this time conan had a hit about 40 feet out and
again the fish cleared the water but unfortunatly the fish threw the hook ,
which was a real shame as it would have been a new personel best for him I
estimated 13 to 15lbs next time buddy ….
Ok so there you have it the
bug in question that the scary fish wanted and also what was quite interesting
was that I was using for the first time the fastach links I bought from
pikeshak , now to say I was impressed with these would be an understatement
they were awesome I was using the 75lb ones and I manged to get everything from
longshank aberdeens in sizes 1/0 right up to the big 6/0 subbug hooks above ive
been so impressed with them that ive now gone completely over to them over the
crosslocks as they weigh a lot less also great product .avalible from
HUNTER BECOMES THE HUNTED
Pike are an amazing fish I
mean check this fish out , and the bite mark it starts from where my finger is
you just never know what the next one will be but hey tere all good to me and
on such a sporting method as the fly just cant be beaten
The headz have it
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Id been sent some of the
new sandeel headz from nick over at deercreek and had tied up a few patterns
using gliss and glint plus for a forthcoming bass trip im planning , id wanted
to see what these were like in the water and what sort action they had how the balance of the fly
with the head was etc etc so id stuck one in the box to try as being a sunny
day I knew the pike would turn off at some point , and as predicted they did
turn of so I suck the largest size one on and flicked it out .
Straight away I saw that it
fished on an even keel and it looked very eel like and I tought hell ive got it
on be ashame not to give it a cast , I was sitting in 12 feet of water so I
cast out a long line (these heads are very aero dynamic) and let it sink to to the
bottom before starting a slow strip and pause retrive.
Much to my surprise the rod
banged over(I just want expecting that) on the second pause and a lively jack
hammerd into it and put up a darn fine display of aerobatics I got the fish in
fairly fast and it gave me a fine display of acrobaticts got to thank conan for
the shot although he dosnt think it’s a good picture well I love it
Without doubt the pike
wanted these they were all over them and not just small jacks , fish of all
sizes were hitting them ,I would when tying these recommend putting a thing
layer of uv round the head for pike purposes just to give the head a little
protction from teeth this you wont need to worry about for saltwater purposes
well in this country anyway , needless to say I have ordered a few more packs ,
if your interested in tying a few up ive done a v simple step by step which you
can find here , there is also a link to purchase the headz
Something new to the box of
tricks
So
as you may be aware if you’re a long term reader of my rantings and this blog, you’ll
know that I was having a few design blanks when it came to dna frosty fish fibre,
well after my initial success the other day in producing something passable as
baitfish that a predator may eat I dived straight in to the challenge and
produced a few new things to play with, and boy did they work in fact all the
flies in the above picture caught fish on the day and I may add looked bloody
spectacular in the water , I can see a box full of those appearing soon .
Oh
and incase you were wondering these were all tied on gamakatsu sl12s in size
3/0 and are 4.5 inchs long
Today’s
blog has been bought to you by 2 screaming mad metal fly fishing loony’s in a boat
(STOP PRESS LIMITED EDITION SANDEEL FLIES JUST ARRIVED AT)
These
are all hand tied by me in scotland and as with all of fast flies stock it is
all uk made none of this economy flies tied garbage you find on the net that
fall apart on your first fish, so if you’re thinking about dipping your toe in
the saltwater fly fishing challenge or even if you need a couple of saltwater
flies for your holidays this is what you need and of course tied by me and used
by me these catch fish
Mcfluffchucker
(a
cave in Scotland)
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1 comment:
Solid post Dave. JGR
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