Flyfishing for pike

I had an enjoyable time at The Flyfair in Stoke-on-Trent. It was good to meet old friends, make new ones and swap ideas.

When summer departed,the pike fishing improved and fooled me into believing that the autumn would provide the traditional high quality of sport. Early autumn's results, whilst not startling were at least encouraging. The guiding sessions were producing a reasonable number of pike with some double figure fish. My largest for the autumn was a 19lb fish from the Upper Thames.

Tim Westcott added to his impressive tally of 2o's with a splendid pike from the the local river.

I was itching to get the guiding/fishing into top gear when the Weather Gods decided to intervene. Persistent heavy rainfall has put the rivers out of fettle for weeks. Not many guiding clients fancy the prospect of boat fishing a big pond when the wind is over 50MPH and the rain is horizontal. I will be praying for better conditions and will try to take advantage of any improvements.

I've recently enjoyed the experience of connecting some bait/lure fishers with their first fly caught pike. I hope that they move into the light and continue with their efforts to get to grips with a fascinating and challenging sport.

Until last week, the biggest fish caught on one of my pike flies was a 47lb baracuda. Jim Hendrick, a great bass and pike guide from Ireland has set a new target with an 80lb lemon shark that he caught in The Bahamas.

Next year, I will be organising trips to Ireland, Northern Manitoba and the Swedish Baltic - If anyone wants details, I can be contacted via my Website http://www.flyfishforpike.co.uk