Last Sunday a northern pike and I met up over a long white Clouser. Anyone else finding pike cruising the shallows, or was my rendivoux a lottery pick? What are your fly choices for pike? JGW
The lake I fished the last few week is mostly a largemouth bass lake but it does have a small population of good size pike. The bass were definitely shallow last weekend but I didn’t get a single pike. I’ll try again tomorrow. Last week the water temp was 67. If it dropped a bit this week, the pike should be moving shallow.
My go to fly for pike is a rabbit strip dahlberg diver. Clousers are always good for pike too. The dahlberg works great as a topwater fly with floating line and it works even better on sinking line. If the pike are hitting deep, I also use a half and half which just a clouser with a deceiver tail.
I use a big ol’ thing that looks a bit like a Seaducer, but it has the tail hackle tied in higher, in front of a bump of crystal chenille. It’s more like a wing than a tail. Lots of action.
Red and yellow of course.
As the water temps start to drop the pike will come into shallower water. Fall is a great time to catch them. One of my favorite flies is the ‘bunny fly’ tied in red/white,red/yellow and yellow/black.
I also have one I concocted last winter using saddle hackle and marabou that turned out to be pretty good. If you like top-water action tie on a mouse imitater.
This is a before and after of basically the only bug we used for our Wignes trips this and last year. Others work fine too, but we usually got a box of’em that get tossed at the stripers around here.
…lee s.