What lessons and tactics can fly anglers adapt and learn from conventional angler to increase success in their own fishing.
Every season my guide clients are a range of hardcore fly anglers, complete novices, conventional anglers and more looking to hook up with giant pike, walleye, arctic grayling and lake trout. One 4 day trip of hunting the shallows looking for pike sunning themselves, can quickly change when the next guests arrive, and the next 4 days are a combination of trolling or chucking spinners, spoons, and jerkbaits. The contrast at times can seem extreme as tactics and presentations change from one group to the next. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any cross over in some of the tricks and tactics that are applied from one group to the next. This series of “Conventional” Wisdom articles will explore some of the takeaways from conventional anglers, their approach to catching big pike, and the existing crossover to fly fishing.
One of the first things to consider when we think of conventional angling, is some of the popular and effective lure choices that have been proven successful over decades. If I were pressed on what is the single most effective lure in pike fishing, there would be no hesitation to say an in-line spinner! This is a debatable point obviously, however an in-line spinner simply works wonders on pike. In my youth the first “big” pike I ever caught was on a #4 spinner while fishing with my father. The roughly 3 foot pike couldn’t resist the spinner, my trusty closed faced reel and short pistol rod, not to mention little 6 year old me had their hands full! Now decades later I often find myself with guests in my boat, each with a spinner at the end of their line and smiles on their faces, much like I did as a kid catching that big pike. Spinners continue to catch impressive numbers of large fish, of a wide variety of species in the boat both guiding and in my personal fishing. One of the earliest mass produced lures, in-line spinners just have maintained their reputation for catching fish, wherever they are used!
When pike or any other target species is fired up and ready to eat in shallower water, of say 15′ or less, spinners are often hard to beat. Put 2 guide clients in the boat on a day when the pike are shallow, active and feeding and it is a guarantee that spinners are going to perform well! It is simply due to the sheer amount of water we can cover, and the speed at which it can be done. Wind direction isn’t much of a factor as they cut through it on the cast, pull into a bay, snap on two spinners, and the clients can fan cast to their harts content. Cast them out and burn them back, simple as that! When the smaller spinners are working, the sore arms and shoulders at the end of the day don’t come from the lures as they are effortless to use, the sore arms come from all the fish they catch! Want to cover a long stretch of shoreline in a hurry to try to find the pike, spinners cast in rapid fire succession are killer! Keeping the boat moving a cast length away, anglers can cover water fast, then cover some more and eventually your going to find, and catch active pike. The lesson is when pike are hungry and obviously fired up, the more water you cover, and the faster you do it the more pike your going to catch, it is just simple math. Those spinning blades produce thump and vibrations far beyond their size, this vibration act’s like a homing beacon, triggering those long lateral line of pike and other species. The steady pace of the retrieve keeps those vibrations humming along, allowing pike to sense, locate, track and eat their perceived pray with deadly precision and effectiveness. Pike of all sizes will come from a long way away to eat one of those little spinners. Size wise a #4, #5 and even up to what some would consider “musky size”, and everything in between have proved highly effective at different times. Also, don’t fool your self into thinking you need giant spinners or bucktails to catch the biggest pike, many, many 50″+ pike have fallen victim to a little #4 spinner across northern Canada over the years. The same can be said for fly selection, small flies also catch huge pike!
While guiding, if I’m being honest, I have taken some drubbings from other guides who have two novice anglers in their boat with spinners, while I have a solo fly fisherman. Not to say that my fly angler has done poorly on size or numbers of pike caught on those days, it just becomes almost impossible to match the speed and efficiency, that two anglers with spinners can cover water with over the course of an entire day. There are still plenty of days and under certain conditions that the fly angler will be the one to eat their lunch, as the expression goes, so it all typically balances out. Spinners can simply be hard to compete with at times! Sure, there are days the fish won’t look at them but when they are working, they REALLY work. But why? Well the effectiveness of the simple spinner can be attributed to three major contributing factors in my opinion. Spinners excel at covering water and utilizing speed as a trigger while creating constant triggering vibration throughout the retrieve.
Lets break these ideas down further and consider them each on their own.
Covering water and utilizing speed as a trigger:
Flies and lures alike should be viewed as tools that fill a need, perform a specific job and function. Spinners fall into a category I would classify as search baits, as they cover water well, fished fast or slow and high or low in the water column. Where spinners really though shine is when they are fished fast, and pike are reacting positively towards them. They can be fished slower and lower with good results but that’s a bit secondary to their prime objective, speed and covering water.
When it comes to achieving speed on the retrieve in fly fishing, it comes from how we strip the fly during our retrieve, be it single hand or hand over hand. Single hand stripping is often all that is required, just done at a faster pace when speed is desired. Hand over hand is the ultimate speed producer in fly fishing, it is a great pike tactic. When pike are fired up and want to eat speed kills, it triggers that instinct to hunt down their fleeing prey. When a fly, inline spinner or baitfish is quickly flying by a pike they have to make a split second decision to either chase, eat it, or not. Speed triggers a now or never response! Speed doesn’t provide time to closely inspect the bait of choice, they see it and eat or don’t. Pushing the pace also helps speed up the search for hungry pike as we cover more and more water. It should be noted that it is physically impossible to strip a fly faster than a pike can swim, when pushing the limit of speed retrieval, there is a long way you can go in ramping it up.
Constant triggering vibration throughout the retrieve:
Some flies when paused will hover in place, some rise while others sink. Compare the action of a poor mans whistler to that of a muddler minnow for instance. The whistler with its steel eyes dips, bobs and weaves, creating constant movement, the muddler on the other hand hangs in place with that bushy spun deer hair head. It is almost like two boxers in a ring, one sticking to the middle of the ring defending and counter punching, while the other circles the outside constantly moving and readjusting. An inline spinner and whistler are like the boxer working the outside, always moving, always punching and being the aggressor and bringing the fight to their opponent while the other waits patiently for a small window. Both the spinner and whistler are always moving, throwing out vibrations like punches to a pikes lateral line that get noticed as a result.
Flies with some weight integrated near the head add to their ability to create more vibration and water movement as they are always moving and swimming, never at rest. Again, all that extra movement helps move water, triggering the lateral lines of hungry pike. A recent addition to fly options the wide variety of assorted “wiggle tails” on the market. These “wiggle tails” really added to the idea of maximizing both fly and water movement. When pike are lethargic, it must be said, my results have not been great with wiggle tails. However when I’ve encountered active pike utilizing wind blown weed beds or rocks, these flies have been magic! Coupled with speed and a constant two handed retrieve you have a fly with great movement and triggering qualities.
Another new trend in flies is placing water pushing disks at the front. This is another effective way to push water and create triggering vibrations. Many patterns incorporate a disk in the front and “wiggle tail” on the back end. A fly with this design, coupled with speed, will get noticed! These flies are great for burning over the tops of weeds, the same way conventional anglers burn bucktails. When pike appear hungry and chasing, pick up the retrieve speed and pick a fly with increased movement. Having a fly that dives head first, has a wiggle tail or water pushing disc becomes an asset, simply for the reason that it kicks extra water. It’s important to have flies that act differently in order to fill all the needs and situations we encounter, remember flies are tools for specific tasks.
Anyone can put on a spinner and catch pike this is true. As fly fisherman we can still analyze and learn from observing what makes that technique so successful and apply that to how we approach our own pike fishing. Hopefully some “conventional” Wisdom from our fishing brethren can help shape how you approach your next pike on the fly adventure with some new found wisdom of your own.
