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.
