Pike flies with Niklaus Bauer.

Yesterday was a fun evening (though a bit short)
Pike flyfisher profile Niklaus Bauer visited our local flytying club and showed a couple of patterns.
Nothing out of the ordinary but some neat tricks for handling materials.

What i liked most was that he gave away his pike fly to a young guy aspiring to start with pike on the fly.

I got some inspiration,got to talk some matierials and have a look at all those fancy ones i want but can't afford.
Nice to see what's out there anyways.

Top water pike flies

I don't often tie from books, of course i do take inspiration but this time i did tie a true topwater classic.
The Dahlberg Diver.
Two colours, yellowish and white.
Two different sizes.

It was a while since i cut any kinds of muddler heads but i'm fond of the second one, the white one.
The purple wing is purely cosmetic.

First fish of the year!

So, i went out fishing this weekend.
Big surprise.

I hooked and landed the first fish of the year, a smaller pike, just above 1 kilo i'd say.
Didn't weigh it.

It was a textbook spring pike.
The fish stood at a dropoff, attacked the fly after a few strips but missed.
I presented it in the same place again, stripped home a few times and BAM!
I set the hook and smiled but it wasn't that much of a fight, the water is still cold, in fact the ice is still clinging to the bays and covers the lakes even thicker.

Short fight, small male in waiting for spawning.

But the season has started!

The culprit. Not the biggest pike i've caught, about 45 cm long.
But few things beat the feeling of the first hook up of the year!

 

Spring is comming

It's been warm the last week and almost all the snow is gone.
Some rain and heavy wind should probably make short work with the ice.
I went to a small river some days ago and it was a proper spring flood, brown raging water!
It'll settle down soon and hopefully the water will rise.

In the meantime i've gotten some new materials for my tying.
Grizzly saddle and epoxy eyes from Taimen.

Here's some new stuff!

Pike fly with trailing feathers and rubber legs.

Spent Danica.
This is a work in progress using deerhair for boyancy and for wings.

For this project i shape the hooks to really look like a dying drake.

Fierce orange EHC with rubber legs.
One of my best grayling flies is the Orange Attacker (pic in the post) and i thought "what the hell, might as well try one as a dry.
You can clearly see the grayling taking an interest!

The East Dalecarlia River.

The Indian Fly.

So. I finaly went down for a try at the pike.
Took the bike a fair distance to a shallow bay i spotted from the train the other day and then looked up on the net.
Got there and realised that it was dry.
And covered with ice as well..
As with all my pike spots.

I've come to realise there's a bit of a problem if you will with my part of the river.
It's deep and hard to get down in to, nothing new there.

The seasonal changes, backed by hydroplants way up the river on the other side of lake Siljan  means that in the early spring the river is really low.
That means the shallow bays of the river are all dried out.
Wich in turn means no vegetation that draws the pike in for spawning.

The main flow of the river is basicly a loose mud bottom and that combined with a strong current means little to no vegetation there either.
Some big rocks and a lot of sunken timber means a fairly good ground for rainbow trout though.

My theory is that the pike will probably not spawn at my usual spots this year but go spawn in the lake.

A sad aspect of the low river is that you can see tons and tons of shoppingcarts and old bikes along with remnants of the timber rafting times lying on the bottom.
Makes me sad to see all the things people just dump in the water thinking it'll just vanish magically...

Anyhow, the pike spots are probably good in the summer when the vegetation is back and i'm not here anymore.
For now there's no pike fishing to be done.
Hopefully the water will keep warming up to at least give me some good rainbow fishing before i move on to new waters and new adventures!
There was a tiny hatch two days ago of some small mayfly but not nearly enough to get the fish up from the depths.

Lets hope for spring!

A plan missfired

So, two days ago my hopes were high for some spring pike.
Those hopes where not only dimmed but blotted out as i discovered river Våmån is completely frozen solid.

So no pike there for me, maybe next time we go up to visit.
On top of that the weather forecast is promising snow this afternoon.

Since we are gonna be here a couple of days i might try to locate a water close by that is not frozen solid.
The larger rivers around Mora and Orsa seems to be open though they are deeper and lack the vegetation suitable for pike.
Nothin much to do but curse and tie more flies.

On that note i'm trying out a sort of traveling pike kit.
Since i'm gonna go abroad for pike in may i want to try some flies now and see what materials i might be missing or find myself wanting.
The kit now consits of:
Flash in many colours
Fox hair, many colours
Holographic eyes
Rubber legs
Glue
Hooks
Vice and other tools
A newly aquired rooster saddle with barred feathers. (still not that Whiting Grizzly i'm so longing for but it's something at least.)

Got any ideas, something you could not do without?
Remember,this is a lightweight project, if i wanted to have everything i'd bring my entire kit.
And a separate bag just for that...

Pike Premiere

It's been a long winter.
But now,finally the warming rays of sun is starting to do its job proper and the snow is melting.
The ice is still on the lakes and rather thick to add to that.
Some rivers and streams are opening up though and with easter break comming up me and the lass is planning to go up to her parents, stay a few days, take care of our house and get it sorted for moving in and i plan to make my pike premiere of the year up in river Våmån, specificly in the lower regions.
The upper are still iced over and the pike are in low stock anyways.
Up there it's mostly grayling and brown trout and the season start for those are not until the sixteenth of May.

So pike it is!
Hopefully the river is fairly open and that some pike will have started moving up in preparation of spawning.
Might as well bring a rod anywhere you go,wouldn't you say?
There's always some fishing to be done.

To that end and in general preparation for the pike season i've tied some more glitter ones.
Experimented a little bit with fox hair and added rubber legs to a couple ones.
The all-hair ones are way to small for my tase in pike flies,only about 10 cm(over all they are a bit small, brown/orange flash/hair fly is 15 and YES that is a bit small), but the hairs lenght has its limitations.
Gonna have to get my hand on some Big Fly Fibre or Craftfur or something like that, tying with just fox hair is a bit expensive...
I do however like to look of the flies, especially the monochrome one.

Here's to hoping and a good comming pike season!

The spring is comming

The winter is comming to an end.
At least i can see the dawn of spring comming up.

The ice is still lying on the lakes but the river is open and the rainbow trout are starting their runs to spawn and i'm hoping for a couple of spring rainbows.

On top of that i'm really looking forward to when the ice is letting its grip go on the small shallow bays and the pike is moving up into the warm water to spawn.

I've been planning a trip together with my father and uncle to go to Åland, home to some of the biggest pike in Europe were we'll fish in the archipelago,mainly from boat but i'll do some wading as well.
They'll fish lures and i'll fish fly.
But i'll be damned if i can't get my dad to try his luck on pike on the fly.

Better start tying some pike-candy!

In the depths of winter.

Here's a small clip for you to watch.
In Swedish, bellyboat fishing for pike on the fly.

Not much is happening.
Did another trip to Stockholm and had another go at the seatrout.
No luck at all,just lost a couple of flies.

And as usual,you all know that feeling, there's not much going on in the depths of winter.
Fishing is hard,the fish is deep and the ice is covering most waters until the rays of spring sun starts to do something about it.

We've had some mild weather in the early winter but if the current cold keeps up i'll be able to do practice the only other form of fishing i do apart from fly - Ice fishing.
The greatest days for that is when the sun have started warming a bit in late februari,early march.

I'm tying flies and longing for the spring pike.
I've come to realise that pike is after all one of my favourite fishes on the fly.
I mean,just look at that water rising as the fish attacks!

In the meantime,more flies,more waiting and unfortunatly....more snow.

One of the favourites. Flashy pike candy tied with fox hair and big eyes.
25 cm long on a thick Carp hook.

Historical curiosity.

Fly fishing is an old art, no arguments there?

But unknown to most is that it's not all about,nor has it been all about rising browns and atlantic salmon.
Here's a picture of a pike fly,some sort of sculpin by the looks of it from 1865!

Looks like it uses two peacock feathers for the wing and then some sort of hair material for the body.
Tied on a double hook makes this kind of a beauty!