Posts: 1991
| I have done a lot of sight pike fishing with flies in the past, it was a good learning curve for what limits bite off vs what tends to eliminate bite offs. I also use this as a reference because pike tend to engulf flies.. Starting around 40Lb flouro you definitely limit bite offs but they did happen and you'll be replacing the leader often, many times every fish... move up to 80lb I personally have never been bit off on a fly pike on anything 80lb+...to be extra cautious I use 130lb for muskies - again never bit off. That being said I found for pike and flies, light single strand wire with a haywire twist got as many maybe more bites than using 80lb flouro. I definitely would NOT use less than 80Lb to TARGET pike and muskies, I will say when I'm multi-species fishing, like throwing jerks for walleyes in the spring, a couple feet of 40lb in front of small lures has allowed me to land a bunch of pike and muskie. Tight lines |
Posts: 410
Location: MN | IAJustin - 7/5/2024 3:09 PM
I have done a lot of sight pike fishing with flies in the past, it was a good learning curve for what limits bite off vs what tends to eliminate bite offs. I also use this as a reference because pike tend to engulf flies.. Starting around 40Lb flouro you definitely limit bite offs but they did happen and you'll be replacing the leader often, many times every fish... move up to 80lb I personally have never been bit off on a fly pike on anything 80lb+...to be extra cautious I use 130lb for muskies - again never bit off. That being said I found for pike and flies, light single strand wire with a haywire twist got as many maybe more bites than using 80lb flouro. I definitely would NOT use less than 80Lb to TARGET pike and muskies, I will say when I'm multi-species fishing, like throwing jerks for walleyes in the spring, a couple feet of 40lb in front of small lures has allowed me to land a bunch of pike and muskie. Tight lines
That's really good info. Lots of fear mongering these days about fluoro. I've caught ~300 muskies on 175#, never had a bite off or really seem even close.
What is your thought on acceptable leader length? How short can you get away with? I use 12" from tie point on swivel to connection point on snap. Seems to be OK for most baits, but I worry a little about some baits like gliders or tubes where the motion of the bait and slack line allow the leader get closer to the bait. |
