Pike fly line for my needs

Cut it! Ideas for making an unique pike line 

There are some features about pike fly lines that cannot be found in commercial fly lines so take your razor and scissors to create fly line that suits for your needs.

I want my line have near zero flex. This helps me to hook fish better. Zero stretch also makes casting more efficient. Best lines for these specs are Airflo made (including Guideline, Loop Pike booster). Rio lines has flex of a rubber band so I don´t have any confidence in them. 

One major thing is the running line. If I want a intermediate or a sinking head and floating running line I have to make line by myself. Floating running line is good when you are fishing from belly boat, pontoon boat or when you are wading. Float running line has a smaller tendency to mess up with your flippers and it is easier to lift from the water. Airflo has a floating ridge running line that meets my needs.

Anatomy of a pike line

Many of the line manufacturers has short pike lines. These lines are about 8 meters long and are ideal for casting big heavy weight flies to short and medium distances. Short head is easy to handle to short distances but when the belly ends you loose some line control and accuracy. 

Short line is easy to handle in the wind but when casting upwind it cannot transfer the line energy from the running line. So in harsh conditions you can only cast few meters over the belly length.

I want the line to be a bit longer because I want to be able to keep longer line in the air. This gives me more distance when casting from a boat especially when casting upwind. There is also less need to shoot the line when casting longer than 10 meters. This decreases shooting line tangles and makes the line more accurate because I have less need to use overhang when casting and I don´t have to shoot line so much. 

Weight to the front and a long rear taper

How to make a line which is long but can turn big flies over whit out getting over weighted? To turn big flies over the line has to have weight in the front and to achieve needed length to the belly there is a need for long rear taper.

This can be made from turning over a scandi style shooting head. Almost every gram of the line weight is in the front. Scandinavian style shooting heads tends to be too short but there is a great option for it: Guideline coastal 8-weight shooting head turned backwards and connected to a floating running line. This line meets my needs for fishing pike.