Extreme Tubing!

Dragonfly in pike colours

The recent rain scuppered this weekends plans for a day on a river, all sepa's data was showing them at very high levels so it was either a loch for trout, which would have been enjoying , fishing the heather fly fall. Or a day hunting the pike. So wee opted for option 2.
The water looked perfect, haven't fished it for many years now. We pumped up the tubes , set up the rods etc.
And before launching the tubes we decided to fish the shoreline, Brian was into a wee jack, at least it was a start! He was using a hot orange fly (aka Phil Collins)

So it was off into the tubes. Brian moved a few on his fly so i changed to a similar fly. But it was a few hours in before i got my first take . I took a fresh fly from my box , cast it out and it lay static on the surface, when a pike made the perfect  head a tail rise and picked it off the surface, it was a big one too, . But after a good battle he ploughed into one weed bed too many and slipped the hook. Ocht well! Brian  again was getting the odd take , I'd here him swear, as they through the hook. Before long i was in again, another good long battle, i landed this fish.

A happy man!

It wasn't long after that Brian hooked up , at first i thought it was a jack it took so gently but then it woke up.

An even happier man!

What started of a slow day sport wise was turning out quite good. Again i hooked up and this fish was something serious, i hooked it in open water, and it ran and ran all the way into the backing and after playing and being towed  for at least 5 mins it all went solid, as it went in to a weed bed. I went over to investigate freed the snag by hand by coming out the other side of the weed bed that's when i felt the fish then i lifted the rod and it all went slack as the pike  spat out the fly. That must have been a monster, it couldn't have been anything else!

Getting Beat up

After that i was knackered , playing these pike and casting these flies all day is hard work so i went over to Brian for some lunch. Brian had a few more jacks for the day. We left contented, glad to revisit some sport with pike on the fly!We almost forgot how much fun it is!

nb:Top flies today were red/ orange!And Authanic wire is the dogs baws!