What a week Theo, Ed & Peter from the Netherlands had this last seven days. Here are a few images from the 368 fish they caught around the island. Every fish was released except for five Perch which were smoked and eaten. Guys, it was an absolute pleasure guiding you here I really enjoyed every minute of your company.......Hopefully see you next year lads for round 2, Cheers!!!!
A brown/white fury double tied with small strips of raccoon zonker and a tandem stinger hook has been a good fly for me this spring. Especially when the pike have fuller bellies and will follow the fly for some distance. Having the trailing hook has made all the difference with the amount of fish I've bagged so far as they have been caught either in the top or bottom lip depending on which way I've had the hook point lying.
Nine days, 8 clients, 632 caught and released pike & 2 taken home for the table. Here are just a few images from the last weeks fishing around the island.
SID Issue 7 is out and it doesn't dissapoint. Check out the photo essays from Tom volk, Luke Kavajecz & mate (Fly tier/fisherman/photographer) PA Nillson's trip to New Zealand. Hopper Hoopla makes me want to fish with small foam objects and there are a couple of really great articles on Swamp buck and the Oregon mule deer. Lastly AO'S trip to New Orleans in search of Redfish really brought home what fishing is all about to me.
Hard to believe that these were taken 40 days ago. Pre spawn, fishing was relatively slow yet productive, tactics were different and there was plenty of ice and snow still about. Now its post spawn,water clarity is around 4m, snotrockets are hitting my fly with reckless abandonment and I'm out guiding with clients daily......life is good at the mo!
The Friendly fisherman has an assortment of different Pike/Saltwater kits on their website if your looking to get started in the sport. prices vary from £199,99 for the E.T. DECEIVER PIKE & SALTWATER FLY KIT 1 to £958,00 for the HARDY PROAXIS PIKE & SALTWATER KIT.
It's feels good to be back out on the water guiding again, even though its with a bunch of plastic chuckers. Treble hooks are the spawn of satan, and I cant tell you how much I dispise them, especially when they still have the barbes showing. The amount of fucking around that takes place trying to extracate them from a pikes mouth, and the damage they do is sometimes disheartening to watch especially if its amature fisherman doing the dirty work. The only concolation is the amount of damage the hooks seem to have done to their hands. Every one of them has their fingers wrapped in plasters. As a guide It's my duty to show them the correct methods for handling caught fish but when trebles are involved I show them once and thats it. 
Saying that though they are getting stuck into a load of fish and seeing smiling faces is what its about. Wether its appropriate for a guide to fish on the boat when he's with clients is a mute point. Some chaps don't but, if were on a long slow drift over a decent run there isn't a cat in hells chance that my rod stays in the rod holder. 90% of the time they generally tell me to start fly fishing anyway.....which oblige without any hesitation.
This fly out fished the lures 3 to 1 on Sunday without me even having to break out of a sweat. and it still looks as if it's just come off the vise.
If your a stickler for adding eyes to your creations then why not try plastic or even glass teddy bear eyes. Here are some sites you can mooch around on. Bearycheap.com , Christie bears ltd , Glass eyes online , Labour of love
There is something deeply disturbing with this image but I just cant put my finger on it!
Nothing wrong with some subliminal advertising now & then....is there!
The same art gallery from another angle. Amazing how a bloke clad only in an orange thong, swilling back jager whilst holding a fly rod draws most the attention. 
More advertising fun for the weekend.
As you know wading is an integral part of my daily snotrocket fix here on Replot. Yet in some ways I've been hindered with only being able to take one rod out onto the water at any one time. Fishing the Replot flats as I call them, with a shorter leader and semi floating flies is fine for certain areas but not very effective when fishing over deeper channels. Which meant a lot of fart arsing around changing to longer leaders and heavier flies while thigh deep in water. Then I came across the "My Ghillie"
I have to be honest here, but the 1st few times out on the water I felt a bit uneasy with the rod lying over to my left side as I constantly thought it was going to fall over but a couple of more days into the season and I didn't even notice it any more. I've even tried it with a number of different length rods (10" & 12" fly and spinning) to see whether the weight would be a problem but it stood up admirably to the test. I have mine set up for a right hander but the "My Ghillie" can be ordered for left handers as well. I do fish light, but for those that fish even lighter, I think a small bum bag for keeping extra leaders, flies, small tools or even lures handy would be a great asset......But thats only my opinion!
In addition to the ghillie, theres another tube rod holder which John calls the third hand and allows you to hold the rod while you change flies, lures or unhook a fish.....Genious!!!! No more placing the rod under my arm or across my stripping tray anymore. 
I just cant praise this simple, yet awesome bit of kit enough, and I highly recommend anyone who fishes the flats in the tropics or for Sea trout here in the Baltic to get yourself one of these. It will be the best $39,95 you'll ever spend with regards to improving your days fishing. Click any of the links or the top image to visit the "My ghillie" site to order one.
Tied this up for my good mate Pietro a few weeks back on a tandem trout rig. The tail and body are Olive & white marabou hairline palmered around the hook shank with some trailing peacock herl. The front hook is much of the same with a tiny trimmed diver head made with tan deerhair.
Really enjoyed putting this together the other day. Yet another articulated replot stinger tied around 12" inches long. Took it for a swim over the weekend but caught a lake that was on the wrong side of Spawning. Pike were in their post spawn funk and just didn't play ball no matter what we chucked at em!
Wobbled dead baits, flies and even large treble meaty spin rod tube flies couldn't budge the bastards. This looked awesome under the water,very much like a small injured yearling pike. 
Tied with Chartreuse & Tan brown schlappen. Black and fluoro yello saltwater flash and dubbing looped yellow,Olive & brown raccoon finished off with several small grizzly microbarb saddles.
Fishing as much as I do here on the island I’ve had to develop certain flies for specific areas and types of fishing. 50% of my fishing is spent wading in water no deeper than 3ft. The other 50% is spent either fishing from elevated rocks into drop off channels, or from a boat. Due to the unique topography this island has, its one of the few places in the world where the land mass rises between 7.5mm – 9mm per annum which has given rise to literally thousands of extremely shallow bays lined with the flattened remains of the previous years reed beds, perfect for spawning pike to take advantage of. Mapping charts have to be changed here every 10 yrs due to the shore line getting wider and wider. Not only that but it’s estimated that there are more boulders found here than in the Himalayas. I know hard to believe but it’s true. This not only makes wading extremely treacherous but also challenging.
When I visited and fished the area 5 yrs ago before moving here, I didn’t enjoy the experience at all. I was constantly getting snagged up on the rocks so over the last 4 yrs I’ve had to evolve, or should I say adapt my fishing to suite my surroundings. One of these adaptions has been the use of bend-back hooked flies, or flies with upturned hook points with counter weight balances like my Rattle n Hums, designed to ride over boulders or through submerged reed roots.
Getting the balance right between the length of the bend in the hook shaft, the amount and type of materials used, as well as line and length of leader choice has seen these flies morph over the last couple of years into what I have here. Finding the right hook for the job has been a constant thorn in my side….well that’s until I started using Partridges Ultimate predator 4/0 hooks. They’re super sharp, light enough not to have the fly sink, yet have just the right length shank for this kind of application.
Pike here mainly gorge themselves on small perch, roach & sticklebacks for around three weeks prior to spawning and post spawn. So these flies are all around 100 mm -110 mm (4 & a half inches) in length. Anything bigger and they couldn’t be arsed in exerting the energy need to catch it. As you’ve probably noticed I love fishing with feathers. Four mixed coloured schlappen or Chinese cock saddles tied splayed outwards on to either side of the hook shank is all I need to get the job done. They have unbelievable movement under the water and weigh bugger all.
If I’m fishing from elevation, over drop off channels or from a boat, I generally fish with a Intermediate line & a 60lb 5ft mono leader (more on that later) but when fishing these shallow bays I use a floating line & a 25lb two and a half foot leader for a couple of reasons. Firstly the 25 lb mono doesn’t sink as quick, and secondly I fish these flies quite erratically. Water clarity here is phenomenal and varies between 2m – 8m, and I spend majority of my time sight fishing. Once I’ve spotted a pike and the fly has landed in close proximity to it, I give 4 or 5 short sharp strips to get its juices flowing. Then change over to single foot long sharp strips with the odd pause in between. Using a shorter leader of around two and a half feet like this with a tightly packed spun deer hair head, allows the energy from the strip to be transferred quicker from my fly line through the leader to the fly which results in the fly darting from side to side more than if I was using a longer leader.
Adding a deer hair collar to this kind of fly, gives it a natural weed guard especially if you add slightly more deer hair on top of the hook shank in front of the hook point. The tightly packed spun deer hair head should have a diameter of around 10mm and should also be slightly higher than the protruding point of the hook which also acts as an unintentional weed guard and gives the fly the perfect buoyancy I'd been looking for.
Another favourite simple fly tied with white & yellow schlappen with a couple of white marabou hairline feathers palmered around the shank. Simple yet very very effective here on the Baltic.
I started with tying on brown and chartreuse grizzly schlappen then added a peacock to either side of the hook. Added some grizzly microbarb saddles then a collar of deer plus a spun deer hair head. 
This is my 1st choice when I start fishing a yellow/white combo.
Lastly, the colour of the flies I use generally fish with are tied in these natural tan/browns with either yellow/white, Chartreuse/ brown, Orange/brown and also orange/ white feathers for tails, with a couple of strands of flash thrown into the mix. I’m busy working on a tutorial for this type of fly and although they might not suite everyone’s style of fishing or favourite venue they really do catch me a lot of pike in the spring when wading the shallows
Click images for larger view!
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