This question isn't for me but for a friend of my dad who is thinking of fishing for pike and was wondering whether a stiff action or slow action is best for casting large flies for low periods of time?

Thanks
AL

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I'd go with a fast action. IMO, the larger warmwater species like pike, largemouth, smallmouth, etc tend to demand throwing large flies that look like you just grabbed them out of the bird cage on the way out the door. That kind of wind resistance tends to favor fast action rods.

Also, with pike and bass, you're going to need to set the hook with authority. By that, I mean really freaking nail them on the hookset. And then beyond that, you'll want some backbone to be able to do what you can to prevent them from CFing you in the nearest weedbed. All this makes me favor a fast action.

Now I write all this and now I have to add the obligatory don't go nuts and go off the deep end into the hyper-fast range. There's a lot of variation in rods that are labeled as "fast", but I would still stay away from the hyper-fast end of the scale because personally I find these rods a little too demanding on the timing. It just gets to be a pain to have to be so focused on the rod rather than thinking about the fishing. So what I'm saying is go fishable-fast, not casting-comp-fast.

Grouse

Hmmm, I'd say not too fast action, even a medium action, Sorry Grouse

This is purely because a lot of pike flies are huge, waaay bigger than you'd use for Tarpon, and are often made from natural materials so they quite often weigh a ton. So, you need to cast with a slightly more open loop to give the lure time to turn around as trying to turn it with a sudden small loop makes the whole system really jerky and bouncy and hard to control. So as an example I tried casting pike fly on an Xi2, bloody nightmare, whereas an RPL was a much much nicer experience!

The 'Classic' pike rod much sought after these days is the Hardy Pike Rod by Ad Swier, and that would certainly be considered medium through action by todays standards.

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You beat me to it Darren. Much easier to cast a big heavy and wind resistant fly with a slightly softer rod. No matter how much you try you cannot bully 6" of wet fur and feather to change direction very quickly in anything other than a pretty ugly fashion. A softer rod helps absorb the bang on transition from back-cast to forward-cast making for a smoother and deeper loading of the rod.

Andy

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I use medium and slow rods for everything so I'm no help! My single handed pike rod is the Steve Parton 10ft 11-13 imperator which is a powerful through action and handles anything.

However if I may suggest an alternative: recently my choice for pike is a salmon fly rod. It's a much better tool for casting big wind resistant flies than any single hander in my opinion. With a bit of practice it is really easy to put out an huge fly well over a hundred feet - try that with a single hander! If he is a competent single hand roll and overhead caster he should pick up a double hander very quickly.

I should have stressed my first post was for pike flies, for bass etc the flies are much much smaller, and of course you're fishing somewhere windy, so in those instances I'd opt for a faster action rod. But, I use a 10' #7 XP with an #8 weight line on it, and that works perfectly!

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I would also reccommend a slightly slower softer rod for large flies, but not too soft, as the weight of the flies is going to slow the action down a bit anyway. You are going to need to open the loop a little as already said, but also not too much, so you lose too much energy, and end up collapsing the line. The softer rod is going to be easier to control than the stiffer rod. If you are able to do it with a faster stiffer rod, than good, but it's going to be easier with the softer option.

Would be my thoughts too!
double hander to spey/roll cast the budgie type fly used for pike.
Would then suggest softer/slower actioned rod would be best!
However if using d/hander and overhead casting mebbes a stiffer/faster actioned rod!
jeez sitting on fence again!
regards
bert

Here's a question more or less relating to this:

Given that a wet pike fly weighs as much (or more) than many spinners, can you 'cast' a pike fly in the same way you would a spinner? Ie. only a foot or two out of the tip ring? Presumably a stiff 8wt and a light spin rod are very nearly the same beast?

Darren, I think that Grouse was talking about Bass as in Large Mouth Bass which can be as big as pike flies



Ben

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