Chew On This

Fly fishing for pike is a growing area of our sport. Ben Bangham takes a trip to Chew Valley in search of one of its reel-emptying submarines…

- Ben Bangham

I think that we can all agree that fly fishing for pike is here to stay. I am not going to go into how popular it has become because it is obvious that there has been a huge growth in this sector over the last few years.

I think part of the reason why it has absolutely taken off is the size of the fish that are out there now, and they are catchable. In the last 12 months I have had two 30lb-plus pike and a huge amount of 20lb-plus fish, all on the fly from several venues, including reservoirs, lakes, canals and rivers. I am not sure that this would have been even possible when I started out trying to catch a pike on the fly.

The fact that venues that were previously totally inaccessible have now opened their doors to pike fishing has really helped to bring pike fly fishing to the front of a lot of anglers’ minds.

Chew Submarines

I think that probably the most influential water to have done this is Chew Valley Reservoir. Most fishermen in the country are probably aware of the huge beasts that swim around the Bristol Water’s crown jewel. There has been plenty of exposure in the press about the big fish that come out of this water, mainly on the bait and lure side of life in winter, however these fish don’t go on holiday. Some people might be unaware that it is actually possible to fish for the Chew submarines all year on the fly and as a true pike fly fishing addict I had to go and give it a try.

I had actually fished Chew a couple of weeks before this article with a friend. It was hard, although we both caught. Andy Deacon had a personal-best pike of 13lb 4oz and I managed a great scrapping twenty at 20lb 2oz. Fishing this session was really useful because it gave me a lot of information to go on for the article.