Fly Casting for Pike

[Malcolm]

I had a session after pike at the weekend and in addition to my normal gear took along a couple of salmon rods. My mate took along his usual Hardy Ab Swier Pike rod which is short and powerful - much more so than normal short reservoir lure rods.

With the huge pike flies there was no doubt that the big salmon rods handled them and distance much more effectively. My own single handed pike set up (Steve Parton Imperator 10ft #11-13) is even more powerful then the Ab Swier set up but even it did not have the easy authority of the salmon rods.

Using the big 18 footer with an #12 and 75foot head it was easy to send the flies at least 50% further and with less effort than the single handers. Dropping back to a 15 footer with a #10 with 65 foot head it was still much easier to send out a much longer lline. However it is the ease with which the rods handled outsize flies of 8 inches long that really impressed me. Fishing shorter distances with a double hander takes on a new meaning: 30 yards is ridiculously easy. Fishing at distance can be quite important on some of the lochs near me.

It might be worth trying a double hander before parting with cash for a heavy pike set up. I fancy that a short powerful double hander might be the ideal pike rod. 

I think the heavy single hander will be consigned to small water and saltwater duty in the future.

Mind you: double hander + saltwater - there's a thought!

[paulr]

I use a 9ft 9/10wt, far too much arm power, and duck a lot  :
To be honest I never really cast far when pike fly fishing, I tend to explore round about structures in the water.
Did you catch any Malcolm?

[Wildfisher]

I'm not sure I fancy using a double hander  to be honest.  They  are so big and clumsy and take a lot of the enjoyment out of fly fishing for me. That said I have very little experience  with them.

[Malcolm]

Fred
Once you are used to handling them they're fine and feel quite natural, I generally tend to use them at either end of the year and the first few hours feels strange.

Paul,

Yes we did have a few but nothing special. The best was about 7lbs taken at distance on my 18 footer.

Col,

For many situations I think you're right however casting more than about 28 yards with a heavy single hander and big wind resistant flies is beyond me I'm afraid and even that sort of distance is hard work if you are having to do it every cast, smaller flies do make it easier.

OTOH casting the 18 footer is a piece of cake and it's effortless to aerialise 70 feet and then shoot more. It's just so much easier and more relaxed. Needless to say it wouldn't be my first choice if all my pike fishing was at short distance.

I'm not an expert pike fisher however, far from it. Do you find that smaller flies (say up to 5 inches or so) are effective? It would make it much easier. 

   

[haresear]

Malcolm, how do you fish to the edge with the big DH and then extend line for the next cast? Is it not a palavver?

Alex

[scotty9]

The length of lever and weight of the head the double hand setup gives will cast to the horizon. Not to mention how easy they are to cast far. I've only used my double hander seriously a few times and as malcolm says a 30 yard cast is not exactly pushing the limits. I've fished a small river with a 15' rod once, impossible. As Alex says i can't imagine fishing all day with it if a shortish cast was needed.

[haresear]

As Alex says i can't imagine fishing all day with it if a shortish cast was needed.

That's not really what i was getting at Scott I just wondered if Malcolm is raising the rod as the fly comes close in and then rolling it out. I suspect this is what he does.

Having said that, as I'm useless with a DH rod, then I would prefer to use the single hander anyway.

Alex

[scotty9]

My bad! I stand by what i said then.... i'm scared of my double hander i think. It's a big, mean, far too powerful, line weilding device. It's a tool reserved for the distinguished real fishermen like Malcolm.

[Malcolm]

Alex,

I lift the rod then slowly sweep to the side - as you've seen me roll cast you'll know what I do - flip the line out and into the routine of working the line out. I actually wondered since then about chucking some of the slack line at my feet out in a series of spirals (like we talked about a couple of weeks ago in the context of drifting a downstream dry fly).

Malcolm

[haresear]

I actually wondered since then about chucking some of the slack line at my feet out in a series of spirals (like we talked about a couple of weeks ago in the context of drifting a downstream dry fly).

That might work quite well Malcolm. Think I'll try that on Sunday.

Alex