pike on the fly

[DanAdelman]

i was wondering when would be my best chance to catch a cuyohoga pike on my fly rod. I am very new to the whole concept and am willing to give it a lot of my time. I used my 20# fireline as a leader and tied on the biggest fly i have which is about a 3 inch leech imitation. Is that going to be to small? It was the biggest fly gander has. Is there any easy/cheap way to make pike flys? I have a fly tying kit but have had a hard time getting started...Any help would be greatly appreciated...

[ptpt]

Dan,

I guess I'd try making one with some silver, red, purple, orange and white in it. Or some combination of the above.

Remember you are dealing with one mean monster and they will attack any size you can make so don't worry about maxing out of size . I would also suggest a leader of substance cause they are a mouthfull of razors and fireline will not handle it.

Paul

[peple of the perch]

they have some cool looking flys for the pike. i would say now is a good time to go

[Salmonid]

I agree, I was in Canada and testing what some folks told me would work as using Fireline for leaders and guess what, lost 3 nice fish, including the "lifetime" fish :( so my advice to you is to stay with the wire tieable leaders of 20 lbs.
I also always do really well for Pike locally here on a #2 Chartreuse and White Clouser Minnow, they love it, short fast strips

Good luck and let us know how you do.
Salmonid

[sevenx]

A bunny leach is an easy pattern to tie. Get some cross cut rabbit died in the colors you want. A good strong hook with a straight eye. Where the curve of the hook begins tie in a piece of of rabbit strip. At this point you can add wieght if desired just rap and secure some lead. Now from the tail you tied in attach another piece a rabbit fur, make sure the grain of the strip is laying back towords the tail. Now rap forword to the eye. leave yourself enough room to tie a good size head. I use 3/0 thread. Now soak the head with zap-a-gap or like product. Now go fish. As far as leader I would get some plastic coated fine steal wire or pre packaged leaders. With leaders cut off the the snap (you can leave the swivel on, some like to cut it) thread your fly and rap the leader back around itself tightly but leave a small loop so the flie can move freely. Now very carefully melt the plastic at the twist with a lighter. just enough to fuse it together. Hope this helps PM me if want better detail on tying the fly or leader. S

[Pikemandu]

Some good ones are red/white seaducers, big hardbody poppers like you would use for bass, lefty's decievers, clousers, bendbacks, and of course ol' reliable the wooly bugger. All of these are easy to tie as well.

[DanAdelman]

Thanks for all the good adive i am going to give it a try hear real soon i will post results

[vkutsch]

spent friday night on the hoga determined to get a pike on the fly- took a long time, missed a lot of strikes -some nice ones- but eventually caught one (smallest pike I ever caught- must have just squirmed out of an egg!). Was using flies my brother tied for me- don't know if they were specific patterns, he tends to get creative. The one that worked had a LARGE profile, brown wings, white body and red wrapping. I think it could go as a small panfish or large crayfish imitation. It also caught a largemouth, and had a real nice smallie hit it.
I think if you spend enough time dragging streamers through that river, they'll eventually hit anything.

[TheSonicMarauder]

^^^^^^^^ ah shut uppppppp viktor lol im still workin on the first with the regular tackle...

[vkutsch]

Ok Sonic, enough whining- we'll take my boat down to waterworks one night this week and see what we/you can get, unless you got a kayak yet, then we can go somewhere else.