Mad Dog Custom Northern Pike Flies

Mad Dog Custom Northern Pike Flies

Northern Pike fishing is my guilty pleasure. I grew up fishing for them and I still love pike fishing. The ferocious takes and exciting top action make for an incredibly fun angling experience. My brother lives east from me, and has access to some very good pike lakes. When we have a chance we go exploring the lakes, looking for big pike and our Northern Pike Flies are packed and ready.

Over the years I have been fine-tuning my pike flies. Generally the challenges with pike flies are: durability, castability and size limitation (related to the casting). When I was in Nicaragua fishing for big Tarpon, we had to cast big baitfish flies for long periods and long distances. That fishery made me have a closer look at fly design for big bait fish imitations. The result of that was the Tapam Special. A hollow Snowrunner brush design. It casts very well, while maintaining a large profile in the water. Additional bonuses were an incredible lifelike action in the water and a very durable fly.

These features were perfect for many baitfish imitations and in particular works great for large Northern Pike flies. I now build these flies up to approximately 14” to target big pike. Generally I like the realistic bait imitations such as small pike imitations, mountain whitefish imitations, sucker imitations, walleye imitations, etc. Other good colour variations are all black, all white, fire tiger and red head. For these custom orders the colours can be tailored to your water and specs.

Predator Tubes are a good general tying platform for large pike flies. However, any type of hook or rigging can be done. The tubes are great for adding popper heads for surface fishing.

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For ordering your custom flies contact:  jaap@skeenariverflysupply.com