Ideas, drawing board and live testing

When you read up on pike feeding behavior and talk with guides and other people that fishes a whole lot more than I do it is evident that pike feeding behavior is not as simple as many people will think. My own conclusion this season has also come to the conclusion that pike are way more complicated than most people will give it credit for.

Anyway, what has been proven several times is that pike have a feeding behavior that often are triggered by competition, and clepto parasitic behavior. Other fish that are feeding, or other pike that are feeding, will get even the most stubborn of pike to act on instinct and start feeding aggressively. There have also been some new spinner lures introduced lately (I’ve been told) that mimics large baitfish hinting smaller fish. With this in mind I thought that I needed to design something similar but as a fly.

Using the Articulated shank I tied first a big roach like fly on a Partridge Ultimate predator hook and then added a smaller fry or stickleback pattern in front on the 55 mm articulated shank with a fish skull.What I wanted was for the prey (the small fly) to sink faster so that it looked liked the big baitfish hunted it down, and then on retrieve upwards.

So yesterday I tried it on a short afternoon fishing. First cast: a follower Second cast: fish on. It’s such a pleasure when you actually have a thought behind a fly and it then catches fish too! I will see if I can try this more this spring season, I also did a version with a double shank to get the small prey a little further away from the baitfish.

Sorry, I’ve been fishing

It actually feels good to say it. I am sorry for not blogging much lately, I’ve been having one of my longest spring seasons for pike ever. Today I was out on my thirteenth fishing spring. Fishing have been hard and the season have been weird. But fishing this many days have gotten me a lot of ideas for the future. More on this later, I need to prepare for the next fishing

Bug bond does the trick

It’s no secret that I loev Bug-Bond, the Non-tack UV cure resin that has revolutionized fly tying in many ways. Ever since I got introduced to it back in 2009 I’ve used it a lot and constantly find new ways and new applications for it.

Here’s a very nice video from Chris Sandford showing some uses for it, brilliant as always!

Fish your fly all the way

Last weekend I had our annual pike fishing trip, more on that misfortune later. I’ve been bringing the video cam along my last few outings trying to catch a little pike fly fishing action. On this little clip you can see me doing a classic mistake, not fishing quite all the way in. On numerous occasions I’ve had Pike take the fly just by my feet and it always pays of to fish the fly right to the shore. You can see here that just as I lift the rod to cast again it looks like the fly gets stuck, well it gets stuck in the mouth of a nice pike. Naturally I didn’t hook it, and my reaction is a little late

Fishing on the 9th of April (Fishing day no 3)

So on monday I managed to get out on my second fishing during Easter. This time I had my entire family with me, all three of them. A good day with fishing, picnic with barbeque, rowin the boat and raising hell. That last part was mostly Wilmer who did because he was not entirely happy being out all day

We managed to catch one pike once more, but it is still way too cold in the water only three degrees celcius in the shallow bays. So hopefully warmer weather will come in soon making it warmer in the water which will give more pikes to come in.

No photos this time, will do better next time!

Articulated shanks

Late last year Flymen fishing company released their new articulated shanks in three different sizes. I’ve just recently started to play around with it, and mainly with the 55 mm shanks for big pike flies. Two examples are shown below. These shanks adds both the dimension of placing the hook further back like with a tube but it also adds a whole new dimenssion of movement in the fly.

This fly has a body/wing of yellow and green bird fur with white Gliss’n glint fibers on the underside.  A couple of olive sadle hackles and a few olive birdfur feathers as wing are also in there. The head is Big Bond over crystal eyes. The hook is Partridge Ultimate predator 4/0.

 

This fly below has even more wicked movement in it. It has a tail of white Fin racoon zonker with a few turns of grey Fin racoon winded in front of it to add more preasure of water. The front (the Articulated shank) has first a grey Fin racoon zonker winded 3-4 turns, then red Fin racoon winded again 3-4 turns. The front is some lateral scale flash and green Whiting Bird fur feathers.

Fishing 5th of April (Fishing day #2)

So this past thursday I got out on Pmy second ike fishing this spring. The warm and sunny weather we’ve had earlier had changed to cold and clear weather these past twp weeks. With freezing degrees in night and not more than 3-4 degrees celcius during the day it was still very cold in the water. This particular day I was also met by strong southwestern winds. Kinda bad conditions.

I had a blast anyway, fishing for about three hours and also going on the boat for the first time this season. Still not a working engine on but it is also kinda nice to row the boat in a slow manner, most spots are reachable by rowing anyway. The bright and sunny weather combined with cold waters with almost no vegetation on the bottom yet mad the fishing hard. I did in the end manage to land a coupikes, not more than a couple of kilos. And I also had a follower that looked very strange, almost sea trout shaped….

Swedish sportfishing fair 23-25 March

So this year saw me doing two big shows in Sweden with just two weeks apart. This second one is all in all a smaller show but since it is just a fishing show (thew other one is wilderness fair together with fly fishing) it probably is more fishermen comming than the Swedish fly fishing show.

A big venue and probably one third of it was pure fly fishing exhibitors. A whole lot of more of the big names like LOOP, Vision, Guideline etc. was there along with both a whole lot of shops and smaller stand with rod builders, guides, fish wood carvers and many more. Also there were a high class fly tyers row there with a lot of well known names and familliar faces. It was great to meet friends like Chris Reeves, Trevor Jones, Caroline Emmet and Barry Ord clark again. Also Swedish tiers like Peter Scheffler, Martin Ågnell, Joel Björn, Nicklas Runarsson, “Big Nick” Dahlin, Johan Sterner, Daniel Barkman, Johan Klingberg and more was there. My very good friends Marc and Jeanette was also there along with so many more people that made this a great weekend.

All in all it was a great show, I met a lot of people, talked fly tying and fly fishing with so many of them and had a blast. One of the best things was that I got to bring Kristoffer with me the last day. He sat with me, walked around and talked to the other tiers and had a great day. I got him Barry Ord Clarks book which he got signed so now he has his own first fly tying book ( I will post a review of it later). Also Barry and many of the other tiers was ind enough to give Kristoffer flies which he proudly took with him to school the day after and showed his entire class. He had been introduces to the fly tying family and they welcomed him with opened arms and I was again the proud father <3

Here’s some photos from the weekend! The fantastic deer hair flies are tied by Daniel Barkman, so cool!

Fishing premier!

Oh how I had waited! I missed out on the late autumn fishing in October and November due to much other comitements and then winter came hard and the ice has been covering my bays ever since January. But now it was finally time to get out again, and fishing premier for me (as you know) means fly fishing for pike! A couple of hours, a quick float tube transport to the closest island and fishing from land like it often is for me.

The wind was medium hard from nothrwest and it was very cold in the water still, very cold! Very few spots had any weeds on the bottom and the water itself was very clear. The hard winds made it hard to fish some spots but my normal favorite spot delivered as it almost always do! First cast at that spot gave me contact with fish directly and the cast after it was hooked, and the first fish of 2012 was landed! I managed to hook and land another one shortly after and had a couple of more following. The other side of the island gave nothing but I was still very pleased as I went back home after two hours, it was on now for real!

Swedish fly fishing show 9-11 March 2012

So it was that time again of the year. Four days of mayhem, crowds and fantastic friendship. Yep, it was the Swedish fly fishing show again! The format was the same as it has been for the last years, a combination with the wilderness fair and beside the big boat fair. The biggest difference was that the Fly fishing show was more integrated to the Wilderness fair and also that it was completely opened to the bat fair too.

This gave the effect that it was way more weird boat people that ended up where we was, sometimes it was a lot of people there but most wasn’t into fly fishing at all which was a little frustrating. But all in all it was a good show, like it always is, and I met old and new friends and had many many laughs! My tying buddies at my table was Marc Fauvet and Jeanetta Linnarud which made the weekend even more pleasant. We had a great time together! Now in less than a week it is time for another show here in Sweden, the big Sportfishing fair!

Here’s some photos from the weekend!