Just to prove that I am not in the strictest sense any type of purest of the ‘dry fly only’ method and enjoy a variety of fishing methods, take a look at this shot below of yours truly with a 'fly-caught' pike of about 10 lbs in weight. This was landed from the bank on a wet and still May afternoon.
I had also noticed a shoal of smaller course fish pitting the surface so perhaps this fellow was hoping for an easy meal of a rudd or a perch when he stumbled across my offering.
What a superb predatory fish the pike really is and just the thing to keep stocks of smaller coarse fish healthy by thinning out the weaker specimens
This one took a black Montana nymph, size 8 long shank, on a floating line just below the surface and was caught in a nearby Lancashire lake whilst I was casting for rainbows with my son Kyle. I had wanted to get up to the rivers for a spot of dry fly fishing yet time and other commitments meant that this was not possible.
I was quite lucky that this one stayed on my 6 lb mono leader and the main reason for this was due to it being nicely hooked just in the scissors with no line actually entering its mouth. Kyle came running over and we soon had the pike in my telescopic trout net (well at least the head half of it). We also noticed afterwards that it had bent the shaft. Later on I spent over 10 minutes trying to straighten it out!
The pike went back to the watery depths with a swift flick of the tail
I would though seriously urge anyone actually trying to catch these lovely predators on fly to use the correct wire trace necessary to combat all those sharp teeth. I just got lucky that this one stayed on!
Some of my earliest fly-fishing exploits (in the 1970s) were undertaken in a local canal with time spent actually targeting pike along the reed margins. Flies used were usually black and red tandem affairs on no. 6 hooks and a slow sinking line.
This is the nymph that took the pike. Pretty much a bog standard Montana with black hen hackle run through the green thorax
Good fun for sure and it makes nice change yet my long-standing 'passion' for the tiny dry fly and wild fish reigns supreme - well for me at least!