Back to the drawing board

With the very few pike being caught lately, this afternoon, I went fishing in a water that has often given me some bites, but only a few hooked fish. And it was the same thing again today. They didn’t want the small streamers (11-15 cm), but the moment I used a bigger one (22 cm), with a lot of movement, I had three bites in half an hour, which I missed all three. Now, two of them, I actually saw them take the fly, but neither even came close to the head (and the hook). They just took the tail (from underneath) for a brief moment and took off again.

I think it has something to do with the angling pressure on this water. There used to come a lot of lure fishermen here. I say “used to”, because you hardly see any of them anymore (they don’t catch anything), and that is not because there aren’t any pike left. These fish have probably seen so many artificial stuff passing in front of their nose, that they have become very cautious (that’s my guess anyway).

So it’s back to the drawing board, to come up with a fly that has a hook somewhere in the tail, and still has a lot of movement.

 

And it was cold this afternoon (I thought my toes where going to break off, the moment I took of my waders).