I'm new to the fly fishing realm, but after witnessing a guy on my fly-in trip to Canada catch 35-40 pike on a fly, I promised myself I would bring my 8 weight into the BWCA for some smallmouth and pike action. I was wondering if you use a tippet for smallies or do you tie a fly directly to a 7-9 foot leader that tapers to 3X. I have read some previous threads regarding pike and will take to that advice.

GUZZARD

i would like to hear what others think about this as well. i usually use a 3X leader and it seems to work fine for me. have yet to test it on a pike tho.

There are really two options for a pike leader. Either tie on a bite section of stiff heavy mono (30-50lb test), or go with a knotable steel wire, like Tyger. Scientific Anglers makes a toothy critter leader that comes prerigged with a piece of steel for tippet and a clip to attach your lure to, but this leader casts like garbage and moves even worse through the water. I'd go with this: Have an all purpose bass/pike/walleye leader, with a perfection loop at the end. Then, you can have looped pieces of tippet for bass and pike, without a full leader change.

Thanks Tight Loops. I'll take the advice. Another not-so-related question. I have a May 16th entry date for one of my trips this year. I was thinking of bringing my fly rod for the lake trout (if not my auger). I have only fished dry flies and poppers and was wondering about strike detection while using streamers. I have read that sometimes trout hit the bait and then come back to take it (referring to streamers). According to the author of the article, many anglers miss the fish with a "short" strike. What is the primary technique for detecting the strike and maximizing hook sets?

In my limited experience with shallow lakers, I noticed that I never missed a strike. They hit like a freight train. If you want to maximize hookups, either tie up your streamers on a longer shank hook with shorter dressing, or tie on a "stinger" hook. I tie in a piece of 8lb mono with a size 6 octopus hook, trailing behind about an inch and a half.

Even a small pike will tear through 3x no problem. In fact, the smaller pike tend to rip up your gear more than the big ones.

For pike, I don't get too fancy with leaders. At the simplest, I just use a 20 pound leader with a bite tippet. Otherwise I use a heavier tapered leader with a bit tippet. For intermediate line, just a 4 foot section of 20 pound mono with tippet is fine.

For the bite tippet, I used to use Surflon (knottable wire) but it does kink, ruins knippers (I always forget wire cutters), and it is quite expensive. So now I use 50-lb fluorocarbon. I tie it on the leader with a double uni knot and tie the hook with a loop knot (just 3 twists is fine) and have never been bit off. The pike might nick or slice the tippet so I check it and replace when needed.