Hi All,

Going piking next week and thought I'd take my fly rod with me and have a crack.

Would you use floating or sinking line?

How should you retrieve? i.e. fig 8 or a quicker jerky pull?

Any other tips on tackle/technique would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Rich

Hi Rich,

What rating is your rod mate? Have you flyfished for Pike before?

Dougie

And have you handled pike before?

THis question comes up so often I think a sticky should be developed for here... based on minimum requirements for the best interests of the pike... it would save repetition.

I haven't handled pike before but the guys I'm going with are very experienced, and I have the requisite gear i.e. unhooking mat, big landing net, forceps etc.

I currently have a greys #7/8, would this be man enough? I have seen a good deal on #8/9 which I was thinking of getting anyways, would this be more appropriate?

Having never fly fished for pike but caught a good few of them in my coarse fishing days i think you have already made the first good choice with going with someone experienced. Pike can be tricky to handle and unhook without damaging them (or yourself) the first few times you try.

With regards to the rod my friends that do fly fish for pike use 9 or 10# rods so guessing the heavier one would be mroe appropriate. Probably depends on where you are going and the size of the fish though.

Just from a personal situation I use an 9 ft#8 because I had not come across any pike over 6-7 lb on my usual waters.But I went to suss out a new venue a few weeks back and had a 21lbr ,I reckon I would have a bit of bother taming the fish and returning it with as little upset as possible to the fish on my #8 weight so a #10 weight is on my wishlist ,the man to speak to would prob be Dougie on here ,if you check out his posts you will see some of the flies that are used for pike,
Corky

I'm not an expert but I have been quite successful over the past few years. For what it's worth here is waht I use .

My own view on the tackle is that the tackle should be as heavy as you can handle. The Single handed rod I use is a Steve Parton Imperator 10ft 11-13 which I use with an 11 wt floater and a 12wt medium fast sinker. If you use big air resistant flies in a wind then you will realise that the heavy line is a distinct advantage. The weight of the line is determined by the flies. Big flies = heavy line

My last outings have been with double handers. I may switch on a permanent basis. The big rods cast much further and handle the big flies (up to 9 inches long in my case) so easily it makes me wonder why I use with a single hander. Certainly on big waters I'll be using the double handers from now on.

The flies I use are barbless and I use a release tool made by myself based on the Ketchem release tool.

The trace material is Proleader.

Good luck

Malcolm

Malcom, when using the D/H what method of casting do you employ?

Hi the 7/8 would be fine for the smaller pike up to 10lb, but a good around rod would of been the 9wt... hope you have a nice days fishing...