Season so far!

Its been a long hard season for me. With constant unseasonable southerly winds I've been able to fish a whole month extra than last year. Water temps have stayed a constant 4'c - 6'c, and with no ice to worry about, the pike have been feeding well. I only have a few more days left before I pack up my kit for the winter and have already started compiling all the stats and its interesting reading for me. I've started to get a better picture about what coloured flies work best in certain areas of the island and especially what flies have been the most productive at different times of the year. Again, tactics were changed,and they have payed off in a big way and although I haven't caught many fish over a meter here this year, my clients have,and thats the most important aspect when your life revolves around this magnificant fish. I'll post my stats a couple of days before I leave for South Africa.

Readers fish porn

Olivier Lesage out in Belgium sent me this the other day of a nice 76cm pike he bagged quite recently. Thanks for this Olivier,I'm looking forward to meeting you and your party here in October mate.

Fly Candy

Another Banger hybrid this time tied with white and cream bucktail, white fluoro floss,red arctic fox and a couple of strands of pearl tinsel flash. This though is the saltwater version tied for South Africa.Total length 90 mm

Free swag if you impress!

For all those in the Uk or subscribe to fly fishing & fly tying magazine then I recommend you look out for the december issue as its running a fantastic fly tying competition with some great prizes as giveaways in the form of Bugbond kits and a Regal fly tying vise.

Rudd, nah!......prefer a Burrito instead!

How many times has a pike followed your fly all the way to the boat and not taken it. Found this yesterday that might shed some light on why Pike can be quite selective at times with what looks edible or not!

Flies for a far!

I'm off to South Africa at the end of this month for 3 months break to get out of the impending winter, so I've been tying up a load of saltwater flies and poppers to be used in the estuaries and also off the rocky groins. I'll still be posting on a daily basis, but there will be a tropical feel layed down once a week depending on where I've been fishing and for what species. I've teamed up with "Easyfly" out in France who have sponsored me a load of new kit to try out (Hardy Proax Sintrix 9" 6# & Airflo bluetooth Nantec 9" 10/11#) lines (Monic phantom WF6 F tropical and a Monic clear WF10 intermediate), reels (Airflo Airtecs) as well as other goodies. I'm going to be running a number of fly tying workshops around the country and will also be up in the Drakensberg mountains flicking 2# & 3# sticks at brook trout which I'm really looking forward to.

The Knuckle head crank bait