Here's a tying pattern, for all those interested in tying their own pike
flies, that has produced a good number of very nice pike for me in the past
two days of fishing (6 hours in total). They ranged in length from 70cm (2x),
80cm (2x) to 90cm (4x).
Necessary items:
- Red colored tying thread.
- Longshank single hooks size 3/0.
- Marabou feathers in the color green.
- Crosscut rabbit strips of 6" long in the color orange.
- Saddle hackles in the color red.
- Spectraflash.
- Yellow colored chenille.
- Icelandic sheep hair in the color yellow.
Before you start tying this pike fly, you start with the rabbit fur strip
and the marabou feathers. The idea is to tie a large amount of marabou feathers
on one end of the rabbit fur strip. We attach the other end to the hook.
This sort of tail, made from marabou feathers, adds to the action of this
pike fly.
When you've done this, we attach the modified rabbit fur strip
to the hook shank. Tie it on the shank about where the point of the hook
starts. Add a coat of varnish on the tying thread and let it dry.
Then tie in the saddle hackles. Make sure you tie them all around the shank.
Next tie in a good amount of spectra flash strands and attach the chenille. Now
wind the chenille around the hook shank towards the eye of the hook until
you are about 1.5cm from the eye of the hook. Fix the chenille in place and
coat the wrappings with clear varnish.
Now cut some small amounts of Icelandic
sheep hair in lengths of 8cm long. Tie them in on the hook about halfway
the amount of hair, so right in the middle. Repeat this step for all the
amounts of hair until you reach the eye of the hook. Add some clear varnish
on the wrappings and fold the amounts of hair towards the hook point. Add
some wrappings of tying thread to secure it. Now you'll have a nice 'fence'
of Icelandic sheep hair around the hook eye. Finish off
by making two 'whipfinish' knots and add some clear varnish on the wrappings.
This pike fly catches really well and I believe this is because of two main
reasons: the tail and the large head. The tail moves around a lot underwater
and the head is really wide so the pike thinks this pike fly is a decent
meal that passes over its head. I know I'm no expert fly tier but when you
follow the instructions that have been written above, you'll see this pike
fly is easy to tie. It is important to use a lot of Icelandic sheep hair.
It makes the pike fly heavy (when it soaks up water) so hard to cast on a
fly rod.
You can easily vary the colors to suit your own conditions. Good
luck with this pike fly and I'm curious to know whether it will be as successful
for you as it has been for me.