hi i want to get into fly fishing for pike i have a greys grxi reel 9/11 weight reel wouyld this be ok to use ? also wot kind of rod /fly line
leader /trace would everyone reccomend any help would be appreciated. cheers steff

Turn the clock back to July and I found a carp water that had pike but a rule no spinning no lures... so I invested in:


Ron Thompson MPX 9' 8/9# rod
Okuma Airframe 7/9 (it is saltwater proof so you can do sea fish as well)
Spare spool for above
Ron Thompson WF9 floating and sinking fly lines
MemorX 15lb mono
Supratress 20lb steel armoured knotable stuff
pack of 0.21 stainless wire & heatshrink for leaders
Items 1-4 I got from Gary Evans tackle and that'll cost you about £100 and set up to go!

Flies... if you buy the above from Gary Evans he puts in half a dozen flies... they are OK and will get you going... BUT buy three from Dougie...

Ones I'd select... Perch, Orange/Chartreuse Beast and the Dahlberg diver or the silver sparkle... no definately the sparkle!!

Some Cortland fly line cleaner is a good idea/essential...

A bit of advice I followed - fancy fly lines are not needed at this stage as you are learning and like I did you'll get them wrapped up and tangled so spend 3 months or so with the Ron Thompson lines, find your feet and then get better lines....

Hope that helps... it sort of condensed my learning process... which is illustrated in my blog...

The above is a good starter kit... well I've found it to be that anyway...

You already have the reel and yes - as that's one I contemplated!!

Cheers

David

Got to agree with offshore, I use a Ron thompson mpx pike fly rod and for the money its a really good piece of kit. Shakespeare do an atlantis rod thats meant to be quite good as well, though I have not used one.
Your reel will be fine, with either a 8 or 9 wt line preferably a 9.
Use a short leader of about 6 to 7 ft of straight mono min bs 10 lbs, and use a wire trace.

Worth joining the Pike (well..Predator) fly fishing club too

www.pffa.co.uk

You might find someone local who will take you out and show you the ropes.

I've been using one of the "cheap" Shakespeare Atlantis 9ft 10 wt rods for the last 6 months and for it's price I've been very impressed with it...casts nicely and has handled everything I've hooked well enough, no monsters but a good few early doubles from small canals/rivers/lakes. It also comes in a good quality zip-top tube... saves you crunching it in the boot, bonus!
I've been using a Partridge Payload #10 floating line but with the front leader/taper cut right back or an old Toothy Critter clear inter line when the wind has just been too strong for the floater.

Small pike to the Atlantis on Tuesday from a disused canal...felt like the middle of winter in the gales...discovered had been my car broken into, when I returned to it.
Dee

Interesting site.

I note that my Sage RPLXi #8 would be ineligible for their events.
Yet I've had heavy fish on it; some 'horsed' in on a Cortland #10 line.

I expect the RT MPX 8/9 mentioned and favoured by three posters on this thread would also be ineligible.







PiB

You may be right... however, I don't believe in spending out tons of cash if it wasn't going to be my thing... Rob Brownfield is quoted on another thread as saying...

"Quote:
Originally Posted by Offshore
Having read the above, are we saying in this thread that my RT Esox 8-9 weight rod isn't up to the job?

Cheers

Nope ...the RT is not a bad rod for the money and built on a pretty tough blank. I think its a great rod to get started with Have you tried it with a 10 weight yet, you may be supprised "

FWIW and IMHO and all that...

While you may need a 9/10 weight rod to cast big pike flies you certainly don’t need one to land big pike.
They are ambush predators designed to cover two or three times their body length in one fast lunge to catch their prey.
They are not designed for sustained high speed swimming. They are so bendy that if you give them lots of side strain they always turn around.
I’ve had two in the low twenties on 7 weights when salmon fishing and had them both netted within three or four minutes.
I have yet to hook a pike under 8lb that I needed to give line to, maybe take a step forward and lower the rod a bit but no more than that.
I have yet to hook any pike that put up as much fight as even a 5lb grilse.
I fish on small river/canals where long casts are not required and can see no reason to use a telegraph pole of a rod.

Over to the pike police


Andy

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hi Andy the pffa recommends the 9/10# weight rod rating simply because its what is needed not only to cast big flies safely but all so to subdue very large pike e.g 25lbs/35lbs+ range very quickly so they can be returned as healthy as possible and to give them a better chance of survival its what the pffa promotes conservation through good angling practice

as you say you can land a upper double on a 7 weight rod jack bashing on a canal you could even land one on a even lighter rod if you wished but it would not do the big fish any-good i and many other experienced pike fly anglers in the u.k.have seen it before large fish being landed on Rutland chew and many other big trout waters were the fish grow to ridiculous sizes being played to death for 20/ 30 mins on 6/7 weight trout gear only to go belly up half hour latter its why we recommend the use of such rods as when fishing these places you never now what you are going to catch it could be 4lbs it could be 40 lbs so why fished under gunned ??????the 9ft 10 weight rods now days are as light as a 7/8 weight so whats the problem???
we simply for our sport to flourish need to protect our specimen fish which we do by good angling practice

hope this helps


all the best Dave

You obviously haven't had a Scottish Pike yet Andy!