KIS-Fly fishing

  This huge Beast of a pike was caught by using summer time tactics I've been doing more and more summer time predator fishing over the past few years here in Finland and get loads of questions about what gear I use. This type of fishing is getting really popular as the warmer temps are making trout and salmon fishing more difficult. So, here's a few words on the subject. Warm water fly selection When the waters warm up and you start to "multi-task" and focus your fishing on both pike and perch it's good to do some changes to your fly selection. Even though traditional pike flies will still work at times, the bulk of the fishing will be done by smaller and more weighted patterns like different Clouser variations, rubber tails and other aggressive patterns that have plenty of movement. Of course top water patterns come to play too. Fishing these types of patterns very aggressively can produce amazing fishing in the so called "off season" that's also c...

One of the most frequently asked questions about my baitfish patterns concern eyes. What eyes did you use? How did you attach the eyes? The list goes on and on... So here's a few thoughts about the subject. What kind of eyes do I use? Many types to make it short. From synthetic JC eyes to glow in the dark paper eyes. I used to use natural JC eyes too, but I am not very comfy about that idea anymore. The bulk of my eyes I buy from China. Kinda ashamed to say that, but that's the truth. Plain silver and red eyes from China are just soooo much cheaper than buying the same stuff from a fly shop and they work just the same. The more special eyes are fly shop material. By special I mean the ones that have shifting colors in them. You know, the cool ones. Same goes for the synthetic JC eyes. They are all fly shop material. I also some times use tab eyes that are also fly shop material or home made. The range of eyes that I use go from 4 mm to 10 mm. Sure, I got some bigger on...

Vision Fly fishing released its premium saltwater rod series in late last year. The good folks at Vision's product development gave me a chance to test drive the pre-production models during last summer and fall, so here's a few thoughts about the rods. I had a chance to fish with the 10wt and 12wt   Merisuola rods for pike, sharks, albies and a myriad of other species. The 10wt got most of the action, but me and my fishing buddies did give the 12wt a good workout too. PassMeTheSalt Big Brown fish. Nasty. The rods look and certainly feel like a million bucks. The finish on them is high end and the components used are quality stuff. I love the dark gray color and the details on the rod. It is a very pleasing rod to look at. The reel seats two lock rings lock up your reel really well and are very easy to work with. The fighting butt is made from composite rubber cork. REC titanium stripping and snake guides. The ferrules at first sight ...

I've been testing the Airflo's Rage compact shooting head for a while now and thought I'd write some thoughts about it here. As some might know the Rage is a floating shooting head designed to act like a floating skagit head. It also works with short sink tips. I tried my 510gr Rage with several rods including 12'6 #8 and 14' #7 Meiser S rods and Beulah 8/9 switch rod. I also tried several  different leader setups with it, ranging from a tapered mono leader of 18' to a fast sinking 10' polyleader. I fished and casted many different flies with it from a #6 Woolly bugger to a 6" Flash fly. I also used the same rods with other matching shooting heads to make out the differences more clearly. The other heads were: Tactical Steelhead, Compact skagit with a intermediate tip, a DDC Connect and a SGS shooting head from Meiser/Godshall. For me the best setup was the 12'6 #8 S rod rigged up with a intermediate Polyleader and a big Flash fly. This was ...

Last week I started test driving my new skagit switch head (420gr) for the up and coming VI trip. When I first got it out of the box I was instantly impressed about the ready made loops on it, they are very well made. I matched it with a #7 Echo SR switch rod and it worked perfectly on it. It worked really well with all types of casts and was a pleasure to use. Tight loops and very good distance when you want it and precision and control even with heavy tips and large flies when the need arises. This is a bizarre line in a way that you can get very good distance from it without having a D-loop? You can just lift it, turn it and shoot it out 20m+ while having the line + tip in front of you in the water? It also flies very well with an overhead cast so it seems like its a real do it all line. I tried it with many tips ranging from a floater to a 16' T-11 tip. To my somewhat suprise it worked very well with everything? Most of the skagit's that I've used this far don't...