Hi folks,

a quick (and possibly very ignorant query):

looking at a lot of salmon flies, seems that many pike flies would do the job just as well. Is it worth having a go with pike flies?

just curious...

Ive had salmon on bass flies and marabou lures.

Most of my salmon flies i simply tie up with materials from my resevoir box, substituting whatever the fly calls for with the nearest material I have to it. This means many of the hairwing patterns and shrimps end up been a mixture of feathers, and marabou.

A Salmon doesnt know its only supposed to hit perfectly tied salmon flies, get something close enough to it and at the right depth with some movement and you have a good chance that it will take.

Ive only got back into my salmon fishing as of last year so people may tell me im talking rubbish here, this is just my personal experience.

My number 1 catching salmon fly at the moment, looks nothing like anything you would find in a tying book, but it works for me. It is simple a size 10 pike trebble, a bit of lead at the head covered with silver rib, a red silk body, a few orange/black tippet feathers for the tail, a wing of red marabou and a hackle of black cock feather.

That's almost identical to a home tied fly I hooked my first salmon on! Sadly, I lost it (only a size 10 single hook, which probably wasn't quite up to the job).

Funny you should say that I have also been thinking along these lines.
Why not?
A lot of the pike flies have more movement in them and more sparkle so i think some patterns would work great.
Maybe take a few on Tuesday and give it a go.

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For unconventional, the 1 killer Ive found this season is leaving the 2 hander and home and fishing with my 9'6" #7 resevoir rod, Di7 line, a short lengh of mono and a popped up booby dressed either white eyes with orange dubbing, knotted pheasant tail legs and orange marabou tail (I was aiming for a shrimp look) or a silver bodied booby, blue marabou tail and black eyes.

Casting upstream of a lie, letting the line drag round, then figure of eighting the fly as it swings round to the lie.

Im sure im gonna get some flak for mentioning this but hey it works, and if im paying £40 a day for a crappy stretch of a river with very few fish in it, you can bet im going to try anything possible to winkle one out.

Im relatively new to salmon fishing on the fly and I cant help but wonder how much of the info on techniques/flys people get about it, is simply the same old "Gentlemens way" of how you "should do it" for the past god knows how long. I simply took my knowledge from the resevoirs and applied it to a river and tested what worked.

Going to hide in a corner now before someone in a tweed jacket shoots me.

I find your attitude quite postive & refreshing actually.

I switched to a single hander about 6 years ago...I havent looked back.

Yes, some of the larger Irish rivers can be hard work, but I've adjusted & experimented with my casting to help achieve as best coverage as possible on the day. In fact I have been very successful on some larger Irish rivers, when friends laughed at me for even contemplating not bringing my double hander.

And to be honest...an all too familiar sight in Ireland is lines of poor inexperienced blokes stuggling with double handers on rivers where they are not required...simply because it is still regarded as 'the method' for salmon fishing.

I am a keen fly tyer & sell quite a few flies to a small circle of open minded anglers...but only my own patterns...and the feedback is positive. I personally just get quite bored of tying the same well known patterns over & over again, even if I'm adding something different to them (which is not really original anyway as there are so many great tyers doing this already)...so I tend to experiment with salmon patterns & marabou tubes are a winner for me.

I havent fished a traditional style salmon fly in years & although I'm no expert...I'm doing ok by my standards. Although some of my buddies will still not consider anything but a double hander coupled with a cascade, currys shrimp etc etc.

I'm really just trying to say that my experiences have taught me not to get too 'stuck' in my ways as there is still plenty to discover...Nice one guys...keep experimenting & tight lines!

Well, had a go this weekend - 9' 10wt pike rod, sinking line and size 4 orange/red blainton whistler.

Certainly found it much, much easier to control the line and get the fly down where I wanted it. And much easier to cast under the trees.

No joy though - but I think there's potential.

And was very encouraged by the positive responses of other anglers. No 'you barbarous heathen - how dare you!', and instead quite a lot of 'hmm..now that's a good idea!'.

The polar opposite of your attempt at salmon on the pike fly.

I had a 8lb4oz pike on a black epoxy buzzer with an orange marabou tail this weekend whilst stalking end of season browns on my local resevoir. Saving grace with it was a size 16 and managed to slip in between the teeth preventing a bite off.

Good job on breaking the "breaking the norm", I bet you felt a lot fresher on returning home after using the one hander ) You are lucky to have a 10wt, I only own a 7wt, at least when you do hook up with it you should have some leaverage.

Had a 12lb springer on the 7wt this year and it felt like I was fishing with a handline for all the control I had on the 1st few runs with the rodd bent down to the corks. Really considering buying a nice allround 10wt for bass/salmon/pike. Do you find 10wt is overgunned an loose some of the joy of the fight or is it about right?

I wouldn't say overgunned - you do still feel like you're engaged in an actual fight with jacks between 4-8lb.

The real difference is in how much easier it is to cast big sodden pike flies, and the control you have over what's going on - lets you lever them out of weeds pretty quickly.

I think the big difference is that there's not really a lot of uncertainty involved, and you don't worry about exhausting the fish too much or breaking the rod.

Sounds like an interesting tactic! i've not tried it, but i do almost all of my salmon fishing with a single handed no 8 rod/line and can imagine the action of a booby could be impossible to resist by a salmon... I will try that next time my sunray fails and the water's low...