Ok, I am bored with tying flies for my trout box and would like to put a box together of flies for catching Northern Pike. I have had very little luck finding patterns online so I turn to the group for help. Please post the pattern and if available a picture of the fly(makes it easier to tie).
My son and I usually do a week-long fly-in trip every summer just for pike. We typically catch hundreds each every day… And giggle as much at the last fish of the week as we did at the first.
We use a lot of divers (Dahlbergs mostly) and other deer hair bugs and mice. We also use a lot of cased caddis imitations as the pike often sit with their noses literally on the beach waiting for voles to try running past… and vacuuming caddis crawlers in the process.
Sometimes we are forced to fish deep and bunny flies, leeches and streamers work there. Pike teeth are awful tough on flies so we go overboard on head cement and stop and glue stuff in frequently as we go.
Do not forget hoppers and dragonflies/damsels. A damsel hatch on a pike lake can be goofy good…
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Oh yeah, we also tie quite a few with weed guards, but only use them when forced. Pike have very boney mouths and little resistence to the hookset… Makes it hard to sink a hook properly. Weedless flies are much less likely to hook the pike…
Pike are very common here in Holland, and as we have no natural salmon- or trout habitat (Holland is about as flat as a pancake:() pike is a logical species to go for.
Here is a pattern that works well for me, relatively easy to tie as well.
The long red tail is made of Icelandic sheep, the rest is Northern bucktail, mixed with kristal flash. In between the several layers of bucktail I cover the hook-shank with chenille, to make it more resistant to the teeth of the fish.
The head has doll-eyes, covered with 5 min epoxy.
Works well for me.
Cheers, Hans
That looks like some good Pike flies. I thought I would make some for the cousin of the Northern Pike…we have only the Chain Pickerel type here…much smaller, still have big teeth. I need to make a few for the heck of it. I wish that url let you enlarge the pic so I could see them better though. Some I knew, some I did not.
A neat computer function (PC) involves the scroll button on the middle of the mouse. Hold the Control (Ctrl) key down while rolling the scroll button. One direction will enlarge your entire screen, the other will shrink it. It really helps to dial a picture up. I bet Mac has a similar function… Probably even easier…