Chaotic Pike Action - Almost

My long awaited trip to fish for pike and have three days off to fish finally came.  Headed out yesterday morning to Flagstaff.  My first glance at the lake and I knew the float tube was a no go with the wind.

I rigged up as the wind continued to blow.  I was glad I had packed the 10 weight cause it would've been a long day  with a 7 weight.  I have been super happy with my  ten weight  it is one of the new Cabela's HDT and can bomb  some serious line.   

Started off with a big eyed baitfish which I lost in short order.  

One thing about pike flies is that it is easy to have too much weight on them, especially in the spring or fall when the pike are shallow.  Unweighted deceivers are a great choice for this time of year.

I had good action on deceivers, pikesicles and another fly I came up with.  I'll try and post up more details on it later and give it a name.  The best colors were red/white and yellow/chartreuse.

Hooked up on the red/white version of my pike fly. 

Upper Lake Mary

The next fish was a little smaller guy.

 I caught three pike from the same spot without moving.  Now by this time the wind is really starting to go.  I knew it was in the forecast but hell they are never right about the forecast.

Another tip about pike fishing in the wind is duck.  Gamakatsu B10S hooks will go right through your ear.  I tried to get a pic of a deceiver stuck in my ear but it is hard to take that pic when you are fishing solo.





 It was time to go find someplace to camp.  It was quite the feat to set up the tent in the wind but I managed.  I knew it was a bad sign when I was awoken by what sounded like a tornado outside of my tent.  I drove out to Ashurst in the morning and it looked like waves on the ocean.  A pic wouldn't have done it justice.  On the way back to ULM I heard the radio guy say "sustained gusts of up to 44 mph" in Flagstaff today.  Hmmm, sounds fun but I'll pass.  It was time to grab some breakfast and hit the road back to Tucson.

In short the fishing was good and the wind was awful.  Worse than awful actually. I have only fished in wind that bad one other time, on the Green below Flaming Gorge.  I'm already planning a trip back one with some buddies to take pictures of fly earrings.  It sucks to be home right now on a friggin' computer instead of fishing, but it is better than getting nuked by the wind I guess.

One last thing I have to say is the S.A. Textured Magnum line is the prefect pike line.  Even in the wind it was able to turn over those big flies.