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.