Making light of pike

Armando Quazzo traces the rapid development of pike flies, and shows us a new breed of large floating lure, which is specially dressed for easy casting and deadly action.

Those who wrote about fly fishing centuries ago couldn't have imagined how things would have evolved. They would not be happy to see their beloved art of the 'lyne and angle' used to catch pike, a fish that in those days didn't even fall into the coarse fish category, a fish way below the status of the noble trout or salmon. Similarly, our founding fathers wouldn't have liked to see hordes of fly fishermen packed like sardines on the banks of reservoirs, casting heavy shooting heads armed with teams of so-called flies: Golden Nuggets, fluorescent lures, Boobies and Blobs. They could not have forecast the popularity of fishing, the pollution on a planetary scale, or the flocks of cormorants that became the Attilas of Europe's flowing and still waters.
Today's reality compels us to modify our fly fishing methodology and target our interest to less 'honourable' quarries which, nevertheless, have the capacity to light a flame in our fishing souls.

And the pike is one of them.

It became a winter quarry not because of its behaviour or attitude, but due to the fact that trout and salmon are not legally fishable during the winter months, and restless fishermen need to keep their passion alive!
For me, the passion started about twenty years ago in foggy Turin, a town by far more famous for its soccer teams than for its art galleries and gourmet restaurants. A late friend who was the proprietor of the very first fly fishing-only shop in Italy decided to award a fishing rod to the first person to catch a pike on the fly. Our fantasies as fly designers were charged by this challenge. We tried to understand the fish, which Nature has designed as a scaly version of Jack the Ripper, a cruel and terrible monster, capable of Formula One speed and equipped with rows of razor-sharp teeth and highly developed sight. Not everything proved true in this romantic version, however...
Tyers produced leaded and larger versions of existing patterns: from time to time we tin-welded two hooks together (a Bass Bug Stinger and a 6x long streamer hook) to make longer flies and have the bonus of the second hook facing upwards. The body was chenille and flanks were mounted with mallard breast feathers, jungle cock for the eyes and a gaudy red wool tail - an idea lifted from pike spoons we had seen.

These first flies were a nightmare to cast: they soaked up water like sponges and did not offer the right silhouette to the fish. Creativity stagnated until a video from the States introduced new concepts to fly fishing for pike: synthetics, motion, and flow of fibres.

Something that today seems normal wasn't so back in those early days: long, multi-coloured synthetic fibres which allowed the fisherman to use large size lures without being compelled to purchase oversize tackle. A 9ft 12-weight can be successfully used to cast a pair of boots, but what is the result of a day of continuous casting? Elbow inflammation worse than a tennis tournament at Wimbledon and a week of visits to the physio. Roman Moser from Austria, Reynolds and Berryman from the States and many other talented tyers were producing a breed of different lures. Deceiver-style streamers and large Eelworm Bunny Flies sold like hot cakes: everything from barracuda flies to clipped-hair Minnows that resembled a Rapala were used to convince reluctant pike to a take.

Tube revolution
The second revolution occurred with tube flies. The idea behind this was based on the necessity to avoid the use of monstrous hooks. Although manufacturers started to offer a wide variety of pike irons, a double sided problem still existed: on one side their weight implied the use of heavy lines, on the other the long leverage represented by the long shank constituted a big opportunity for the fish to unhook itself (by the way, this toothy critter does not have the raging power of a salmon, but it is surely capable of ruling the first moments of the battle with powerful, reel-bursting runs).
Some years of experimentation brought me to adopt the tube fly technique for this fly that I named the AQ Pike, and which gave me near-satisfactory results wherever I had the occasion to fish it.

It is quite a simple tube fly realised with Fishair fibres veiled with Flashabou and Krystalflash strands and with a voluminous clipped deer-hair Muddler-style head (synthetics addicts may substitute the clipped deer head with a more technological foam cylinder like Bob Popovics' Banger flies, but I am too much of a purist to abdicate in favour of the wholly synthetic philosophy).

Due to air resistance, the AQ Pike is far from being an easy fly to cast. Nevertheless it does not absorb gallons of water and - with the help of some line speed and a well balanced shooting taper - it can be the ticket for a non-tiring day's fishing.

Another important aspect is the size: this fly may draw the attention of a fish which, contrary to popular belief, does not possess good sight and needs a large lure to be enticed.

Last but not least, it tends to float. This feature allows the use of the sinking line plus floating fly to fish over weedbeds with extreme efficiency right where our predatory friends love to spend the largest part of their day waiting in ambush. The technique is quite simple: you cast the fly over the weedbed, let the line sink and retrieve with long steady pulls and pauses. Every time you pause, the lure will start to float towards the surface behaving like a dying minnow, a target a hungry pike can seldom resist.

Oh! I almost forgot; the competition for the first pike caught on the fly? The prize has been awarded to a friend of mine, who was only fishing a few yards from me - he only went and hooked the first toothy lunker on a fly I tied for him...

Hooks, tubes and rattles
A good size O'Shaughnessy bend hook (like Tiemco's 8089 or Mustad's 3407 or 3366) is perfect for the job. Double or treble hooks may be used too, but I have generally found that the singles offer better and stronger hooking as the weight of trebles makes the fly appear less convincing.

Pressure tubing may be purchased in hardware shops or shops where laboratory materials are sold. However, considered that the tubing will be covered, any kind of tubing will suit (anything from cotton buds to ball-point pen refills). I purchased a coil of 25mm diameter vinyl tubing some years ago and still keep clippings of material from that source (for the hook holder I found the suitable material in a modelling shop: it was the gas tubing for airplane engines).

My friend Paolo Pacchiarini ties a glass rattle along the hook shank of his flies to wake an apathetic pike some distance away; I can assure you this really does work.

Part of an article taken from October 2002 issue of Fly Fishing and Fly Tying, which also includes a deadly dozen from the continental pike fly box, and features "One of the best - a terrific catcher, anywhere".