30lb Pike on Fly Tackle

30-Pounder on Fly from Chew

GLASCOED, SOUTH WALES fisherman Roger Barnes is an angler of considerable all-round experience.

Yet it is only in the last four years he’s taken a serious interest in fly fishing for pike and caught a string of good fish from several locations. But nothing like the 30lb 2oz pike that fell to his white bucktail fly on Chew Valley reservoir just a few weeks ago.

Roger Barnes and his 30lb 2oz pike from Chew

Roger, a manufacturing engineer with BAE Systems, has been an angler most of his life and has used stickfloat and centre-pin to trot for roach and grayling, fished the Wye for barbel, and lure fished for pike. But most of all he’s devoted his time to fly fishing for trout and grayling on reservoirs and rivers.

Even though he had previously caught pike to 21lb, a fish that fell to a home-tied fly on Llandegfedd reservoir, home to the 46lb 13oz British record pike caught on a lure in 1992 by Roy Lewis, he was hardly prepared for the 30-pounder that grabbed his fly on Chew Valley reservoir.

Let Roger take up the story:

“I caught the pike on a size 4/0 white bucktail tied by myself. My rod was a Sierra Bluewater 9′, rated AFTM 9. The line was a No. 9 Airflo Forty Plus slow sink, and the reel a System 2 8/9 disc drag. Leader was 6′ of 15lb Berkeley Big Game with 12” of 20lb Alasticum wire.

“I fished from a boat and the big pike took my fly on my second cast of the day as I was about to lift the fly out of the water. I saw everything from it’s mouth opening, gills flaring, etc, to the moment its great jaws closed over the fly.

“It took about 10 minutes to land it.

“I always tie my own flies. This fly was a copy of one developed by my friend John Mathews. When I started tying pike flies I made some really big complex flies, but experience has shown me that simple flies that do not hold water work best and cast further.

“I enjoy pike fishing, mainly lure fishing with plugs and bucktail spinnerbaits, but being a life long trout and grayling fly fisherman on rivers and reservoirs fly fishing for pike has brought a new dimension to my sport.

“It’s almost as exciting as night fishing for sewin with the fly – almost, but not quite!”