Inspiration needed

For the last few months, I've had a feeling that I'm slightly stuck with my pike flies. I was always tying the same patterns, I also fished with the same patterns time after time. I caught fish quite nicely though, that was not the problem, but the reason why I fell in love with fly fishing for pike was the fact that it was such a versatile sport.

I stumbled upon Simon Graham's awesome blog a few months ago: http://pikeflyfishingarticles.blogspot.com

Simon has awesome patterns and just the right attitude for the sport. I never started fly fishing for just to catch more fish, I started it for having more fun.

I was so lucky that on my first fly fishing trip, I managed to catch my first pike on a fly. It was early March and only a short strip of water was open in the river, everything else was covered by thick ice. I was there with my little boat, in the middle of the ice chunks, desperately chucking fluff. I managed to get a bite and after just a few more casts I caught my first pike on the fly. It was not a big one, ordinary little jack at about 1 kg but it really set me on fire. I had to stop fishing as my reel started to freeze solid when the sun went behind the trees but I could hardly wait until the next fly fishing trip.

It seems that finnish fluff chuckers don't really experiment too much. They use the flies they have seen to work. Flies are rather simple, made from one or two materials, three at most. Slinky fiber, craft fur, schlappen, bucktail etc etc.... That's the way I have done it and that's the way many many others have done it. These flies work, they swim quite nicely and they catch fish. They don't even break down easily. But that's it, they just don't seem exciting anymore and there is no passion in tying them. They're just a sort of tools made for doing something.

Mickey heading for the pike hunt!!

For now I promise myself and the pikes of the western coast to tie something totally different. I promise to try different techniques and materials. Amen.