Back in March I published an article on Killer Flies for Pike in which I described the Go Go Ray fly pattern. I have been using this fly for a few years now and after another summer of pike fly fishing, it’s time for a few improvements to the pattern. The more I fish this fly, and another fly I created, the Iron Butterfly Minnow, the more information I can gather and put towards building a better fly.

This summer provided me a few days of stark contrast. One relatively calm day I was standing on the back of my boat casting the Iron Butterfly Minnow in the hopes of hooking a few pike.

Another boat trolled by and ask me what I was doing and if fly fishing actually caught fish. I told them fly fishing was my secret weapon, when spoons and jigs aren’t working, I pull out the fly rod. Just then, Wham!, a pike hits the fly and the rod bends. Timely proof delivered on cue. However my proof was short lived, lost the fish 10 feet from the boat. That was followed by a few more episodes of the same thing, a strike, pull, head shake, fish gone. I knew the fly pattern was good, I was getting fish to bite aggressively, but landing none. I switched to the Go Go Ray fly, one tied a few years ago that had a few battle scars.

Next hit from a pike, hooked up, netted, landed, released. Again, hooked, netted, landed. I fished for another hour, caught a few more, until the poor Go Go Ray pike fly was battered and torn apart. I retired the fly and with the sun already set, headed in for the evening.

The following weekend I was back out with one of my sons, a newly tied Go Go Ray on the fly rod. The next 5 pike strikes, back to the old pattern, a strong hit, a strong pull, a head shake, and the fish was gone. The saving grace of that evening of fishing was landing a nice walleye on the Go Go Ray.

After close inspection, I have a pretty good idea of why i have gone through streaks of losing fish and streaks of landing fish. Last summer I recall that I had a few short streaks of losing fish I felt I had well hooked. At that time, the Go Go Ray and the Iron Butterfly patterns were tied with two hooks, one facing downward, one facing upward. Still I was losing fish. So for 2020, the pike flies I tied had just one hook. Based on results, seems like a bad idea. Examining the beat up Go Go Ray fly that was my most successful fly of 2020, I noticed that although it was the two hook version which means it would have been tied in 2019. But more importantly, one of the hooks had been rotated 90 degrees, so I had a downward facing hook and a sideways facing hook. Think of a treble hook with only two hooks. My theory is that the single and double hooks were somehow laying flat in the mouth of a pike and pulling free without hooking in when the pike did the head shake.

The solution was simple for those flied with two hooks, simply grab one hook with one set up pliers and use another to rotate the other hook 90 degrees.

For flies I tied in early 2020, they flies with the highest lost fish ratio, I have taken them back to the tying vice and added a second hook, turned at 90 degrees.

One more trip out on the water this coming weekend will be the test.

I’ve been tying flies for pike fishing for about 10 years now. Some have not caught anything, others have been very successful. About 5 years ago I started tying a variation of the clouser minnow, using crystal flash. I cast that into a very pike infested bay and hooked pike after pike. The color combination that worked best was a red “bloody cheek”, white underbody and blue upper body.

In the years since I have come up with a couple of my own fly patterns that work really well for pike so I gave them names. My top two go to flies are the Go Go Ray and the Iron Butterfly Minnow. The Go Go Ray is named after a drummer in a blues band. Not because they look alike, but I did give the fly a set of “drumsticks”. The Iron Butterfly Minnow is named for the band, Iron Butterfly, of “Ina-Godda-Da-Vida” fame. Me and my fishing buddy snuck in to a bar in the mid-80’s to see them live.

Today I’m going to tell you about the newest of my flies for pike, the Double Bass Go Go Ray. This fly features lead wire wound around the length of the shaft, making it heavy enough to sink to deeper waters in the heat of summer. The ingredients include (in order of appearance):

• 3XH/7XL streamer hooks
• black thread
• lead wire
• red crystal flash
• black crystal antron chenile
• white crystal flash
• Semperfli predator fibre baitfish olive
• dumbbell eyes
• head cement

Even thought that’s a lot of ingredients, it’s at most a 2 out of 5 for tying difficulty. Remember this is a fly for pike fishing so if in doubt, add a few more wraps of thread and an extra of glue.

Pinch off the barb and put the hook in the vice. Wind on the thread near the head and catch in the lead wire.

Wrap the lead wire all the way back the shank to a point opposite the point and then snip it off. Overwrap the thread all the way back over the lead wire. Add enough wraps of thread to secure the tag end of the lead wire. You can add some head cement here for extra hold.

Over wrap back up the to just short of the eye and catch in the “bloody cheek” section of red crystal flash. Normally I will keep this to about an inch long. I went a little longer on this fly.

Cut about 2 inches of chenile for the “drum sticks”. I usually use olive chenile for this but only had black in my stock pile. Fold in half and lay over the hook, about a 1/4 inch behind the eye. You want these to dangle downwards. Wrap it in. Add some head cement.

Cut some white crystal flash, about 2-1/2″ long. Lay it on the top of the hook and wrap over with about 10 tight turns. Add a few drop of cement. Cut the olive Semperfli predator fibre slightly longer than the white crystal flash. Lay it on top of the white and wrap it in with another 10 wraps and add some more cement.

Wrap forward with the black thread to just behind the eye and wrap in the dumbbell eyes. Add another 5 or 6 wraps behind the hook eye and tie it off, adding some more cement atop the dumbbell eyes and the final wraps.

I would rather catch a fish, any fish, on a fly rod. A big pike, head shaking, pulling line, is tons of fun on a spin cast rod and reel. Catch the same pike on a fly rod (pic below) and it feels completely different.  The pull is different, the fight is different, and of course the technique of casting and hooking a fish is very different.  I like to fly fish for pike from my boat, either anchoring or drifting through pike waters.

But now let’s talk about fly fishing for Perch.  Most people associate fly fishing with casting dry flies on a river for trout.  It’s also a great way of fishing for trout in lakes.  But fly fishing is also a tremendous way to catch Perch, lots and lots of Perch.  So I have decided to compare fly fishing for trout in still water (lakes and reservoirs) with fly fishing for Perch on a lake.

First of all, like any fishing, go where the fish are likely to be.  Perch will hang out in weed structure and under the shadows of above water structure, such as docks and fallen trees so these are great areas to target.  If you have access to a dock on a lake in the southern half of Saskatchewan, you probably have Perch around.  Where there is one Perch, there are likely many.

I have realized, but trying every method I could think of, that you can catch Perch as long you put something attractive in front of them with some movement.  I have had success with all of the following fishing techniques:

• by wading out into the water and casting back to the weeds
• casting from a dock over weed structure
• casting from a boat back over weeds
• from a kayak positioned to cast along the edge of the weeds or beside the shady edge of a dock
• from a belly boat beyond the weeds, casting back to shore

So, just about any method that let’s you get a fly to the weeds, within a couple feet of where the fish are.

Fly’s that work:

• Mickey Finn
• Caddis Fly
• Egg Sucking Leach
• Bead Head Nymph
• Muddler Minnow

When I fly fish for trout and they are actively rising to feed at the surface, I will try to cast to the rise, bringing the same fish back up to the surface for another bite.  While that has worked with rainbow trout on lakes, ponds, and rivers, it’s rarely successful with Perch.  But a similar technique will work, cast beyond the rise and strip line to pull the fly back over where the rise occurred.  When doing this, I have often seen Perch nipping at my fly line, right at the tip where I have my fly line looped and secured with black thread.  I think the Perch are mistaking the black thread for a leach or other small black worm.  So when I then drag my leader followed by an egg sucking leach across the same spot, I often have a bite.

Perch are very aggressive feeders and because they hand around in schools of many fish, it’s quite common to see fish moving in small groups of anywhere from 2 to 10 fish at once, chasing a fly.  There is competition among the fish in the group to take a run at the fly/food so if one misses, it’s often followed by another. So because I’m often casting beyond the rise, it’s not critical to land the fly softly (which you MUST do fishing to the rise with trout).  But it is important not to let the fly line slap the water, or you will spook away the whole group of Perch at the spot of the rise.

Now for the best part, catching a Perch on a fly rod makes them feel bigger.  I catch Perch off my dock (boat, kayak, belly boat), from sun up to sun down, as many as 30 in an hour.  Most of them are small, less than half a pound (and smaller) but I use a 4 weight fly rod with very light tippet so when I hook the little Perch, they actually can put a little bend in the rod and a one pounder can strip line from the reel.  Perch don’t really run much but they shake constantly when hooked so if you let up on the line tension, they are going to shake themselves off.  So it’s not the fight, it’s the thrill of the hook set, and the release, that make Perch on the fly a lot of fun.