Sunday 1 August 2010

Tough times

Its been a tough old season here on Replot regarding pike on the fly.Yes I've bagged a good head of fish but nothing like last year. Coming out of the coldest winter in 70 yrs to having the hottest summer in 40 yrs with 3 of the hottest days in recorded history its played havoc I'm sure with mike the pikes metabolism. Average water temps are up 3 degrees higher than the previous 14 years here around the island, which has driven even the average jack snotrocket into cooler waters.

Jani & I have fished some truly fantastic snotrocket waters over the last month with not much to show for our efforts. Waters you'd put top dollar down at the bookies that you'd pull fish out of......waters that fished exceptionally well last season & yet you can only fish an area to the best of your abilities which we've certainly done. All manner of different rigs,spinner blades, lines,retrieves & flies have been used to tempt them.

What's been very effective the last month has been an extremely fast retrieve. Roly poly style with the odd stop in between. Now I've very rarely used this method with pike but it seems to be working at the mo. This Jack followed my fly on numerous occassions with a normal stop start slow/medium retrieve. As soon as I cast out and placed the rod under my arm and roly polied back, the 1st pause I took,the distinctive silvery olive flash appeared as it shot out from behind the rock like an exocet missile and my line went taught. That short lived rush of adrenaline made my night. It was unhooked quickly but I have to admit I held onto its tail a lot longer than I generally do in the water just to prolong the moment.

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