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.

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!

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….

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!

Pike tube

Ths week has been hectic but great! Both jobs have been very stimulating, a new position at my day job and orders comming in every day for the Grayling Dreams beat have kept me more than busy. I still owe you a story and photos from the Somerset show but last night my laptop kinda crashed  so I am not sure when I wille able to do that

Anyway, last night I sat down and ties a pike fly that I really liked the color combo on, I liked it so much I chosed not to put eyes on it because Ididn’t wanna risk ruin the head.

Hollow pike fly

Here’s a very simple but highly effective pike fly I did last week for my day out on the lake “Mälaren” on saturday. I was going to write a report but since we caught zero I didn’t really know what to write about

The thing with these kind of flies is that every thing is tied in forward over the hook eye and then folded back. While the material is held down by a paper clip of a hair clip a head is made from Bug Bond. Dead easy and very good. The fly gets volume without weight and is very easy to cast. I might do a step by step for this later.

 

Last minute tie

I know, updates are almost criminally delayed for the moment. Still over hauled with work, and also been putting in hours in to my Grayling Dreams business the past couple of weeks. I did however manage a couple of hours fishing in friday, and before that tied the mandatory “laste minute tie”. More on the fishing in a later post.

Tube fly tied Niclaus Bauer style!

Fishing 2011-09-16

So for the second consecutive friday I managed to get out of work by lunch and do a couple of hours of fishing in the afternoon and for the second time in a row I had a lot of contact with fish. I was only out for a relatively short time but in retrospective a whole lot of things happened!

My last meeting for the day at work I glanced out the window and judge by my surprise when a majestic sea eagle came soaring by outside with a flock of seagulls circulating it. A clear sign that I needed to get out of work and go fish instead, so I did!

I took a phone meeting in the car on my way down there and only stopped on the hourly drive to drive trough McDonalds for some burgers to go. Once I got down I suited off and put waders on and walked the familiar way trough the woods down to the small channel that I need to paddle across with the float tube to reach the island where I do most fishing: “The pub”. I am gonna save the story of the name of that island for another post.

I went down the gravel road, stepped off it into the woods, past trough the rocks, the swamp and then as I came up on the cliffs leading down to the channel I suddenly see a majestic deer standing 20 meters in front of me almost down by the water. I stop and we both freeze for a second just looking at each other when the deer suddenly chickens out and runs off into the trees.

I got such a good feeling from this encounter. All of a sudden one of the worst work weeks in a long time is blown away from my mind, my mood is on top and I feel genuinely good! It was like mother nature herself decided to give me a gentle push towards focusing of the right thing. Privileged is a word that comes to mind. I am privileged, I have this fantastic nature at my doorstep, I have two fantastic sons and a family who are healthy and loves me. I have an interest that I will live for the rest of my life. I am privileged.

Inflate float tube, fins on, pack on the back. Paddle.

Last week I had a fish strike on the first cast, a long cast just over a weed bed, it was not gonna happen today though. The wind was still from north west but way harder today, and from where I want to cast it came straight from my right. Not ultimate when you have bigg ass flies with 4/0 hooks flying around your head. I gave it a try but I had to go further down the island, as I do I slip and fall quite badly on my hip on the slippery cliffs!

I limp on and also swap from the blu zonker fly I tied earlier this week because I wanted a lighter fly to cast in the wind so I put on the firely one I tied last night. So new spot and new fly and wouldn’t you know I got a strike directly! I just saw as it hit the fly about 6-7 meters out from me and I thought I had it hooked but after a couple of seconds it dropped off, damm! Quickly out again but nothing, and ten more cast but noting more. At this point I start to think that it might have been my only chance of today.

I loose confidence in the red/yellow fly and dish deep down the box to try and find a white/green fly, my most successful color and finally find one! First cast out and about 10 meters out a vicious strike to the fly but once again I manage to miss the hooking. Quick cast again to the same spot, full concentration retrieve and just as I thought I had missed it, only about 4 meters from the shore where I was standing it struck again this time so hard I almost dropped the rod because I was just about to life the fly to recast. Needles to say I missed to hook that one too.

But the annoying thing is that over the next 20 minutes I miss two more strikes, and I am by now getting frustrated and confused. What is also frustrated is that it seems most strikes has been from the same pike, and by now it is a little careful. With every cast I do it follows the fly in but won’t bite anymore. I try to change fly but with no success.

I decide to leave this spot for a while and cross over to the other side of the island to try and see if that lagoon is better today than last week. But with the same winds this lagoon is almost completely sheltered and way too calm for the pikes liking. I do give it 20 minutes or so before deciding to go back to the other side again. I stop on a spot a little further in this lagoon, I still want the pikes on the other spot to rest up good. Now I am sorry to say that the trend was steady, first cast out and BAM! A solid strike but not even close to hooking it up! Argh!!!

I make ten more casts at this area and just as I was going to reel up and move I see a pike standing in the weeds about 6-7 meters out from me. I try and cast the fly a couple meters behind it and slowly retrieve it while it sinks down to the correct depth. Just as it pasts the pike he swims away from me, obviously startled from the fly. I lift up with the plan to cast the fly in his general direction just to hook up the branches behind me instead. Not my day today.

It takes me a minute to untangle everything, and once I am done I standing there considering if I should go back to the first spot or do one more cast here, at this point I am not very confident any more. I am in a “what’s the point” mood. But I decide to give it a shoot. Which was great. Because after six missed strikes I get a strike and I finally manage to hook it properly.

A strong one but not too big, so I pretty soon get it to shore and land it. Wise after last weeks try to take photo I put some more effort into it and manage to catch myself and the pike on the same photo this time!

Suddenly I feel much better, and I feel that I am rewarded for not giving up after so many missed fishes. But just to make sure I am not too happy I miss one more strike before going home.

Another great day, another fantastic start to the weekend!

Pike flies tonight

I don’t use rabbit zonker that much for pike flies these days, but these zonkers from Future Fly was so cool in color and I was almost out of Racoon zonker which is my standard choice for pike flies so I gave it a try. It will soon be tried…