Fly Candy

To be honest I've just about had enough of winter here and cant wait for spring now. Unfortunately that wont be for another month, so I'm left dreaming about the good old days until then. Anyway I tied up some sand eel fry yesterday for my ever dwindling sea bass box. I had 20 or so of each of these flies last year but have given so many of them away to mates I needed to replenish stocks. These also come with a single sprig of long bucktail just to add a slight bit of bulk to the fly.I generally try to have the microbarb saddles protrude out around 2 inches past the bucktail which allows them to really wiggle when you retrieve the fly back.

Pike on the fly in Norway

Not much beats drifting around on a float tube fly fishing for snotrockets all day!

Fly Candy

This was one of my favourite softbelly baitfish patterns I fished with last season, tied in perch colours. This top one is a plain version of the stripped model below. I must admit the stripes do give it a little edge over the top fly,whether it fishes better I don't know.So many variables one must take into consideration.

Destined for greatness

Snoek Veenmeer. from Duik Stek on Vimeo.

A short clip I found of my favourite fish in minature. Stay safe,grow strong little fella!

Fly Candy

A couple of new Popper streamers with burnt orange marabou collars and white and black slinky tails. A clients has been using these in Australia recently to catch GT's and Cuda off the flats near Cape York.


A couple of Chartreuse/Pink poppers this time with smaller popper heads mounted. The tails are a mix of grizzly varient and grizzly chartreuse schlappen feathers with pink and chartreuse marabou collars.

Fly Candy

I call these Marabou hairline popper bombers purely because they are entirely tied with marabou. Very simple construction. Marry two blue & white marabou feathers together and tie on at the back of the hook near the bend.

Then palmer on 3 black marabou down the length of the shaft to where the popper head will butt up against. Take two bottling corks and dremmel out a concave groove in them.Spray paint black. I never bother with them but I stuck a couple of these cheap ass rattling eyes on for the photo.

This is a pink version of the same fly with a slightly larger cork head. To be truthful I never fish for pike with poppers tied onto hooks these days as all my poppers are tied onto tubes. Weight is drastically cut down from not tying all your materials onto a long shanked hook and secondly I can get away with using a much smaller hook with an extremely short shank further away from the popper head depending on how far down the tube I place the popper head....See here for my reasonings!

Big isn't always best!

Okay, not a Pike fly, but I really like it for its simplicity and fish catching qualities. Probably a great cross over all round saltwater/Freshwater baitfish pattern. Will definitely be tying me up a batch of these soon.

Fly Candy

This small army is on its way to France where one will soon be able to purchase them from Easyfly.com

Fly Candy

There are some great exponents of foam out there that utilise the material very well. Far better than I ever will. Most flies tied with foam are generally used for surface lures which is understandable. These gurglebugs which can be fished with a floating line are far better when fished with an intermediate line. A floating fly that can be dragged under the surface and fished a meter or even 2 meters has a very attractive action that any respecting predator cant resist.

I've been looking at ways of adding foam throughout a hook in ways that won't hinder me when tying on the other materials so as to be ablle to give me a fly that is light enough to cast and will be drawn under by an intermediate line, and I constantly keep on coming back to this design.

I do have some new and interesting templates which I've settled on and will try them out this coming season.....Until then I'll just keep on plugging away with these.

Fly Candy

I cant put my finger on it why Orange and black is such a productive colour here around the island, and to be honest I don't think I ever will. The only hypothosis I have is this colour gets attacked through sheer agression for being within that pikes patroling area.

I can remember on a number of occassions last season fishing with some perch patterns that didn't get a look in, yet as soon as I chucked an orange pattern on, either like this softbelly baitfish or the orange n black banger below over the same area, the fly was hit pretty much instantly.

Orange....It has absolutely no qualities or similarities to any of the fish we have around the island but yet It seems to be a snotrocket magnet!......Why oh why?

Readers fish porn

Regular visitor to PikeFFArticles Michel van der Kruijs sent me this the other day of him with a nice slab of snotrocket caught in Sweden. She has a nice bit of width between the shoulders Michel. Thanks for this mate!

The Ekich Ultimate bobbin

The Ekich Fly tying bobbin
As a pure functional tool, the Ekich Ultimate Bobbin holds, dispenses, and automatically rewinds thread directly from any standard thread spool. It eliminates non-productive manual thread rewinding. I haven't used one of these myself yet but was wondering whether any one out there has one of these or can tell me whether they are worth the outlay of around $120. It seems to have been developed for the more intricate Trout & Salmon bregade than for pike scum like myself, so am a bit concerened that the heavier threads I use as well as force to tie my flies with would have a detramental effect on its performance!

Fly Candy

A mate of mine over here in central finland caught some nice brown trout with this same raccoon bunny pattern last season. So he asked me to tie up a few more for him. I call these flies "slap n dash" purely because they are relatively easy and above all quick to tie. No thought process is needed for their construction yet are effective fish catching wads of fluff!

Must have items?

For only $5,99 from MOOKIEGIFTS.COM here's a doubled walled can cooler every respected pike fly angler should have on his boat or down in his man cave next to his tying stand.....Not!

SID 6 issue out now!

SID issue 6 is out with some great articles which is well worth the read from cover to cover. I particularly liked the "Fall Musky" & "A duck & your dog" features as well as an interesting write up with the master of foam, Paul Hansen. Click image or link to visit th Ezine!

Pike on the fly in the Netherlands

Pike on the fly in the Netherlands with the boys from Dykers.com

The business end!

My three hooks of choice at the mo. The top one being a Fulling mill 6/0 long shanked hook used only for poppers. The second one down is the Partridge ultimate predator 4/0 hook & The third is my all time favourite pike fly hook the Tiemco 600sp 3/0.

Partridge are now producing this Ultimate predator hook in a number of sizes but for an all round general pike hook the 4/0 is probably the largest size I would go for. Looking at it, it has similarities to the Aberdeen perfect but with a few millimeters chopped off the shank. Personally I would like to see the shank of this hook shortened around 12mm as I generally tie all my materials on an 8mm area but I suppose beggars cant be choosers. The best characteristic with this hook is that its super sharp.......as sharp as the Tiemco 600sp, and that' saying something!

Fly Candy - Musky madness

This is the last of the four that I tied up. Primerily in Black & Tan colouration with 4 Chartreuse grizzly varient schlappens thrown in as well.

Over the last 6 years I've been privy to read some very interesting articles written about pikes hunting habits and their senses and the use of heavily widened front ended flies. Three or four of them have been written by a good friend of mine living in Helsinki at the mo Vincenzo Penteriani who has several articles on the matter in Magazines like (Fly Line- Italy), (Peche mouche- France), (Danica -Spain) to name but a few. He's been doing a study on the effectiveness of popper and deer hair type flies being fished below the surfacere primarily to see how effective these kind of flies are in attracting pike and his findings have been very interesting indeed. I can understand that some of you would find chucking flies of this size a bit daunting and question the weight issue especially with regards to the tightly packed deer hair heads retaining a lot more water,but that is actually the whole idea with these kind of flies. These flies can still be cast 15m but its the noise they make on the surface when they land and the amount of water they displace during the 1st couple of strips and the stream of airbubbles they leave behind before it get pulled under the water that these flies are designed for. Even when under the water they are meant to give off the ultimate amount of movement and vibration to hopefully imitate an injured or dying fish.

This is why I tie & fish with so many types of flies as I'm constantly looking to improve my chances. Off course I wouldn't fish with these kind of flies through out the season but I have found that having a different selection to suite the season or day greatly improves my chances than just fishing with the same old pattern day in & day out. To me its about constantly trying new things which will in turn broaden my appeal towards the sport even more.....A sport which I'm so addicted to.Again my way is definitely the right way but works for me and I'm happy with the variety of flies I fish with.

Fly Candy - Musky madness

Another tandem, this one is tied with brown schlappens, Grizzly varient hackles,White & tan microbarb saddles, Tan bucktail with a tan and dark brown deerhair head. Total length 11" inches.

All the feathers have been tied on splayed outwards so they spring back once the strip has been made and the fly comes to a stop for maximum movement and vibrations. Think these flies are going to open up a big can of whip ass on the Ottawa river this season. Am going to be developing some of my replot stingers with tandem hooks in a week or so to see what they look like. So stay tuned!
Click images for larger view!

Fly Candy - Musky madness

This beast is 14" long and is a combination of Black saddle patches,black microbarb saddles,Hot Orange grizzly microbarbs and black bucktail with a tightly packed black/red deerhair bobble head.

It doesn't look like it but this fly is another tandem double rig.The main body has been tied on a Partridge Ultimate predator 4/0 hook while the tail I used a Tiemco 811s 3/0 saltwater hook.

Click images for larger view!

Fly Candy - Musky madness

Have been asked to tie up some custom musky flies for a chap in the States. The only criteria was that they needed to over 10 inches long, Tied with a tandem hook, push a lot of water through the first couple of strips and tied in Tan/white, Tan/Brown & Tan/Black.

This one is 11" long and tied with a combination of bucktail,White chinese neck hackles,grizzly microbarb saddles and a packed deer hair head. All the freathers have been tied on splayed out to give maximum movement.

I've called this model the FunkyMusky. More to follow in the coming days.

Superbadass easy to tie pike fly

Superduperbadass-easy-to-tie-pikefly from Robert Sørvik on Vimeo.

My good mate Robban sent me this the other day of a fly he ties. The Supereasybadass easy to tie pike fly.....cool name.Nice one Robban!

Fly Candy

After the last week I've just had I sure could do with a spot of fishing. Some time on the water would do me the world of good. Unfortunately I'm left with 45cm of snow still to plough from around the house. Anyway its nice to be able to post again. These soft belly baitfish were very productive for me last season, especially during the autumn.

I like to use these with an Intermediate and am going to be tying up a set with some fishskulls to be used with a floating line. Out of all the synthetics I've come across Mirror image is my favourite to fish with as the strands are fine which give off a surprisingly wavy action under the surface and retain very little water once the first false cast has been made. This Natural belly with the olive marabou give it a nice bream look.

Pike on the fly in the UK

UK Fly fishing for Pike, winter... from Graham R on Vimeo.

Sorry for not being around the last week but have been trying to come to grips with a truly traumatic family matter which has kicked me for a six and totally knocked the stuffing out of me. I'm not sure If have the motivation to post much on here for the next week so please just bare with me. Thanks for stopping by everyone!