FIN-ITE 34
Well-known member
Got out last evening for about two hours for pikes on the river and had some action with smaller fish. My intent was to paddle upriver and fish back down, but I was met with an obstruction that went completely across the river. As most of you who know the river, the silt and high banks make for limited opportunities to put a kayak in and take out of the river. This was one of those areas that had no way of easily getting around the blockage, so I opted to fish down river.
The down stream section holds a few rafts of spatterdock, or yellow cow lilies and I decided to work the areas between them up to the bank. My first fish of about twenty inches hit the gold and chartreuse streamer about fifteen feet from the bank and made one nice jump before I was able to bring it to hand. Pretty looking and healthy fish which is always unexpected when looking at the water that the fish live in.
As I was removing the hook, my kayak had drifted up against the lily patch and after releasing the fish I noticed that there were fish moving within the lilies, as I could see the leaves moving in the fish wakes. There was no way to cast my big pike fly into the middle of the lilies with the 6/0 hook dangling off the back so I paddled out to the lily line that ran along the middle river channel.
I worked the outside edge of the patch by casting and slamming the fly on the water just on the edge and making one or two strips before "rinse, repeat". I managed three more fish, all less than thirty inches, but the takes were savage for the size of the fish.
Nice evening piking. A few nice takes and no mosquitoes.
The down stream section holds a few rafts of spatterdock, or yellow cow lilies and I decided to work the areas between them up to the bank. My first fish of about twenty inches hit the gold and chartreuse streamer about fifteen feet from the bank and made one nice jump before I was able to bring it to hand. Pretty looking and healthy fish which is always unexpected when looking at the water that the fish live in.
As I was removing the hook, my kayak had drifted up against the lily patch and after releasing the fish I noticed that there were fish moving within the lilies, as I could see the leaves moving in the fish wakes. There was no way to cast my big pike fly into the middle of the lilies with the 6/0 hook dangling off the back so I paddled out to the lily line that ran along the middle river channel.
I worked the outside edge of the patch by casting and slamming the fly on the water just on the edge and making one or two strips before "rinse, repeat". I managed three more fish, all less than thirty inches, but the takes were savage for the size of the fish.
Nice evening piking. A few nice takes and no mosquitoes.
