A pike on the fly

I returned to the Erewash this afternooon, to see if I could sort some better fish out from between the minnows, my strategy... fly fish it. I started out in the same place as I began on monday, presentation was difficult, casting, in the conventional sense, was impossible, a bit of underhand flick could get the fly out, but the fast current picked up the fly line and dragged the fly off downstream. Since I'd assumed the first fly would not survive many casts in the undergrowth I'd selected an old battered and unidentifyable wet which had lost its most of its wing, it looked nymphy enough, I'd describe it as a "little brown thing". Unfortunately it didn't really have the weight I needed to get it 4ft down into this deep hole. I persevered with it longer than I should have really, picking up a chublet and a small perch, but failing to raise any interest from the larger perch I could see.

 Once I had figured out the the way I was working the nymph was basically jigging, the new fly had to be an orange leadhead with maribou tail and rubber body. Not a fly in the purist sense, but as its got feathers and is being fished with a fly rod and fly line its a fly!

It didnt take long before I bumped the hook on a perch, and on the next cast had a good solid take, probably the same perch I had out of this swim on monday.

It took five or ten minutes for the swim to settle, I then had two aborted takes from another perch, and on the third cast, as it moved in again, its path was suddenly blocked by a juggernaut of a pike, cruising straight into the fly. It didnt really seem to know what to do once hooked, but with the hod hooped over it thrashed and splashed on the surface, in between spells of just grumpily refusing to yield.

I had to pop it onto the scales as it was a fly P.B. Bang on 5lbs.
I moved upstream, across the bridge and back downstream along the relief channel. I spotted lots of chub but there were all pretty skittish, a skylined rod alone seemed enough to send off the larger specimens, and the smaller ones would scatter at the plop of the leadhead. I switched to a goldhead hares ear and managed to bring it downstream right in front of a 4lb chub, the chub moved to intercept, but just before it took, it seemed to spook at the fly and rapidly left the area.

Working my way back along the natural course I missed some fast takes from small chub, before eventually connecting with a couple of perch.

  I finished up with another tiny perch , before the nymph was lost on the backcast to a aerial branch  and I decided it was a  sign to tell me that I had bothered the fish enough. I was driving home by 5:15 after about 3 hours of fluff flinging. In terms of fish on the bank maggots win hands down, but for mental stimulation & excitement... I'd forgotten quite how much I like fly fishing!