FLY-FISHING FOR PIKE by Paul Le Gall, translated by Claude BELLOIR

1- Foreword

ln many fishing magazines, it is good manners to write learnedly about fly-fishing for pike. Fortunately, common sense more and more often seems to prevail. Falsehoods are still to be found however and seem to come from a need to hold forth at all costs rather than from a true knowledge acquired at water's edge.

The following articles originated in another approach, and their only ambition is to share some thoughts derived from first-hand experience with those who would like to try it in turn.

As a matter of fact, neither ang!ing for big wild river carp, or for huge and savage lake char, nor fly-fishing for salmon, have provided me with such excitement as that given me by flyfishing for pike.

A 90-cm long pike that keeps jumping one metre high out of the water tethered to 30 metres of line and part of the backing out of the reel - your heart is in your mouth! Another such fish that literally explodes the carpet of water liIies, jumps out of it like a Polaris missile to splash back into the water - a heart-stopping display! Yet another, whose wake can be seen from several metres away, which grabs your surface lure in a huge and noisy boil - what could be more breathtaking!

That is why I wish you too could feel what I have felt since I started fishing again for pike, but on fly only. This method has allowed me to feel the attack at the Iure of close to a thousand fish, successfulIy or not, to land and put back some 500 fish of 60 to 125 cm, the biggest of which weighed close to 34 lbs. If this introduction, which I hope is only the beginning of a longer series of articles, can't let me write learnedly about fly-fishing for pike, it may be enough to share what it has allowed me to realize.

Therefore you won't find hereafter the Truth, what is to be done or not to be done ( for such was written before even though it was rather foolish), but quite simply a series of remarks about what my experience so far has taught me as essential to remember.

They will deal with the rod, reel, line, leader and lures. However neither fishing nor casting techniques will be dealt with to avoid repeating what's already been abundantly published elsewhere. Only a few remarks on the fishing proper, especially missed takes, landing and putting fish back, will appear.

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