How to Tie the Gator Aid Pike Fly

Ryan Brod is back with another awesome tutorial to show us how to tie the Gator Aid Pike Fly.

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Today, Ryan is going to show us how to tie the Gator Aid. The Gator Aid is a great fly to use for pike in both the spring and the fall when the fish are up in shallow water. With a combination of a whispy schlappen tail, hollow tied bucktail and a big Buford style head, this fly swims great and is bound to land some toothy fish for you. Don't build out a pike box without thinking of some of these first!

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Materials:

Hook: Gamakatsu B10s (size 3/0)

Thread: Semperfli Nano Silk Saltwater (100D, Orange)

Tail & Body: Hareline Schlappen (White)

Flash: Hareline Krystal Flash (Red)

Body & Head: Hareline Bucktail (White & Red)

Video Transcript

Hey everybody, this is Ryan Brod with Trident Fly Fishing. Today we're going to tie one of my favorite pike flies. It's called the Gator Aid, and it's a pretty simple fly that is highly effective for springtime pike when they're up shallow after the spawn, and also in the fall when they range back into the shallows looking for baitfish. This is an example of a white and red Gator Aid fly tied on a 3/0 hook. I'm going to spin it around so you can get a look at the finished product, and then we'll tie it.

We're using the Gamakatsu B10S Stinger hooks. This is a 3/0, super sticky hook, narrow gauge. Pike have really hard mouths. I love this hook because it doesn't come out. As far as thread for pike flies, it doesn't really matter. I kind of like a bright thread - it gives it a little bit more flash. I'm going to start way back near the bend of the hook and give it a couple wraps.

The first thing we're going to use is schlappen in white, the 5-7 inch. What I'm looking for is pretty webby feathers. I don't want them to be super stiff. The webbier feathers have more action when they're wet. I think the magic number here is three. The reason I say that is, if you just fish with two, after a long day of casting and catching a few fish, sometimes these quills will break. If I lose one of two, that might change the action of the fly. If I have three to start, it gives me a little leeway in case I lose one during the day, which happens all the time, especially with toothy fish like pike.

You have options about whether you want the feathers to be married together, and that's my preference. Rather than having them splayed out, I want them kind of facing inward towards each other. I want them to be relatively similar in length, as close as you can get it. I'm going to cut these even, all three of them. It's helpful to clear off a little bit of material at the ends of the quills. I'm going to place that as flat as I can onto the hook.

This is probably the most important part of the fly - how you wrap these feathers on. A lot of times guys will tie four or five loose wraps, and the problem with that is these feathers will pull right out. I get a couple of loose wraps, and then I'm really going to lock it in. I don't want those feathers coming out. I'll test it - if I come back here about two-thirds of the way back on the feathers and give it a good pull, you'll notice sometimes if you didn't give it enough wraps or didn't tie down hard enough, one of the three will pop right out. That's feeling pretty good. You can see those feathers aren't exactly lined up, but when they get wet they have a tendency to stick together and they'll have great movement.

Next up, pike like flash. I'm going to move my thread right in front of the feathers and use some Krystal Flash in red. White and red is a traditional pike combination of colors. I don't know exactly why they like it, but they do. I'm going to take about six pieces of Krystal Flash and wrap it around my thread, so I have sort of double the amount I started with. I'm going to tie that right into the top of the hook, tying it right back to the feathers. I like the flash to be a little bit shorter than the length of the schlappen, so I'm going to cut it right about here. You can see it'll spread out nicely and overlay the feathers, which is great.

Next up is more of an aesthetic choice. I can leave this bare and come forward and start tying in the bucktail, but I like to add one feather palmered to cover up that thread and give a little more body to the back of the fly. I'm going to cut off a similar length feather - I like this marabou-y type material here, it's going to help cover that hook nicely. I'm going to pluck off a little bit at the end of the quill and tie it into the top of the hook. This doesn't have to be pretty because you're going to be covering it up anyway. I'm going to bring the thread ahead and let it hang there, and I'm just going to palmer this by hand. As I wrap, I'm going to pull the fibers back. You can spin your vise if you have a rotary vise, but I kind of like doing this by hand - it allows me to have more control. Once I get right to where the thread ends, I'm going to tie it off. Make sure you go over the top like that so it doesn't come out. You can actually just pluck that right off.

Now I have a little more body. That palmered saddle will give some support to the tail. Now I'm going to switch over to bucktail. To create the bulk on this body, we're going to hollow tie this. We're going to do two different sets of white bucktail coming back here, with a little bit of red near the head of the hook.

This is a proportion thing. If I choose too much bucktail, this fly is not going to swim the way I want it to. With pike flies in particular, I want my fly to be neutral buoyancy. In other words, when I'm stripping the fly along and I stop, I want that fly to hover right in place. I don't want it to sink, I don't want it to float up - I want it to stay right in place. If I hollow tie these and create some space between the wraps of bucktail, it'll create little air pockets which will keep your fly on a flat trajectory. Pike don't feed down, they feed up.

I'm going to have the bucktail lay over like this so the tips are pointing towards the eye of the hook - a couple of loose wraps, and then I'm really going to tighten down, tying back towards the tail. You've seen guys use a pen cap to pull this back. You can also use your fingers. I'm just teasing those fibers back. It's not going to look pretty at first, but these fibers will create a bit of a support system so your tail is not fouling around the hook. I'm getting some base wraps in front of the bucktail, and then I'm going to tie up onto those wraps to create a little bit of pressure so that those bucktail fibers are pointed back.

See how they're kind of popping straight up and down? I want them to be back at an angle. The way I do that is by building up the thread here. You'll notice you get to a tipping point with that thread - you create this little donut around the fibers, and at that point they're sticking back. You can see there's a nice little pocket between the bucktail and the tail.

I'm going to duplicate that. I'm going to bring my thread about a third of the way up from the bucktail to the eye and pick another clump of bucktail, cutting down close to the hide. You'll see when you pull that out there are different fiber lengths. I tend to pluck out the longer fibers so I have a more uniform length. I don't want this to be a lot longer than the previous one, so I'm clipping it down to size and I want a nice, flat, straight cut. Again, tips pointed forward. I'm going to overlay the bucktail over the top of the hook and hold it down with my left hand. A couple of loose wraps - at this point I can position and move this, I have some flexibility. If you notice your bucktail is uneven, those loose wraps will allow you to look at the fly, see where the bucktail is sparse, and move it around. When I get to a position where it seems like it's well covered in all areas, I'm going to tie tighter wraps and again tie back towards the tail.

Notice it's pretty sparse. I'm not using a ton of material, but I'm creating this little gap between the two clumps of bucktail. Same idea - I'm going to tease those fibers back. If you want to use a pen cap you absolutely can, I prefer doing this by hand. I feel like I have a little bit more control. Again, if I don't wrap enough or don't create that donut in front of the fibers to stop them, they will pop straight up and down. That's okay, but because this is mimicking a baitfish, I want a more slender, streamlined profile. I'm going to build up the thread wraps to that tipping point where the bucktail is not going to pop straight up and down - it's laying backwards towards the tail. Now I have this nice little gap between the first two clumps of bucktail that will fill with air. As I'm casting, it will create these little pockets that will help that fly stay buoyant and stay on a flat trajectory.

Now you'll notice in the finished product there's a little bit of red. I like that. There are all those conversations about whether it looks like blood or a gill. I think there's something natural about the red, so I'm going to bring in a little bit of red bucktail now. Same idea - I don't need quite as much as the white. You're going to notice there are some longer fibers, so pluck those out and create a nice flat cut. I'm going to position this underneath the hook. Thinking about a gill plate, thinking about a pike coming up from below - they're almost always feeding up, so they're going to see this red as they look up at the profile of the baitfish fly. Tips pointed forward, cut facing back, a couple of loose wraps. I'm going to position this so the red is covering all around the hook, but the bulk of it is going to be on the bottom. Once I get it in position, I'm going to tighten those wraps. This part's not going to be pretty, but it's going to be covered up in a minute by more white bucktail. I just want to get that nice flash of red to mimic that gill plate or blood. Tease that back with your initial wraps.

Coming forward towards the eye of the hook, I'm going to do one more bit of white bucktail - a pretty sparse clump this time. Getting rid of the oddball fibers, creating a straight edge. Straight edge facing back, fibers facing forward, top of the hook, a couple of loose wraps, and then tighten down. You'll see when you tighten down that bucktail is going to pop out and give you a little more volume. I can move this around until I feel like the bucktail is proportionally all around the shank of the hook, pulling backwards. You can actually tug on this material and really pull it back to give yourself a little room for your thread. It kind of looks like we're running out of space, but if I pull those fibers back it gives me just a little bit more room. I'm going to try to tie these fibers back a little bit more so they're laying down more nicely. Now I have the kind of profile I want of the baitfish. This will get streamlined as it gets wet. It's going to push some water - it's a pretty big fly, probably about seven, seven and a half inches long.

Now the Buford head. That is this stacked bucktail in front of the fly, right behind the eye. I believe this was originally designed for musky fishing. For me, it's the combination of these little pockets of hollow tied material that fill with air, plus this Buford head which pushes against the water. As I strip this fly, the objective is I strip, the fly stops, and it turns. Part of that is the buoyancy with the pockets of air, and part of it is the Buford head resisting and pushing against the water. I want to create this stacked bit of bucktail right at the very front of the fly.

I'm going to get some stiffer material up here closer to the end of the bucktail, and I'm going to use a little bit more than I did for the body wraps. Same idea - a nice, straight, flat cut. Now instead of putting the tips forward, I'm going to put them backwards. This will allow me to figure out how wide I want that Buford head to be. If I place this bucktail right here, the Buford head will only be that wide. I want it to be a little bit longer, so I can pull that back past the eye. Now I'm lining it up so it's on the top of the hook with the eye just beneath. I'm making a couple of loose wraps and then positioning the fiber to go around the hook, working it with my fingers and tying a little bit more tightly as I go.

It'll look a little funky at this point, and that's where a pen cap can be helpful - but again, I'm going with my fingers today. I'm pulling this back to create that Buford head shape. I can position this so it's even around the eye of the hook. I'm actually resting my forearm on my vise and pulling back on those fibers, creating a little bit of space between the Buford head and the eye of the hook - that's where I need to get my thread wraps. I'm really pulling back on those fibers, giving myself as much room as I can, and wrapping backwards so that the Buford head doesn't pop straight up. There we go.

Now I've created this mass in the front of the hook which creates resistance. As this fly is going through the water, it will push water and create resistance. That will help accentuate what we call canting. You'll strip the fly and stop, and the resistance from the Buford head plus the pockets of air will turn the fly sideways. You strip again and it'll turn. It's kind of like a walk-the-dog action, and musky and pike can't resist that. They love it. If they can see your fly in profile as it turns, you're in business.

I'm going to whip finish here. A little trick I was taught recently - after you finish your whip finish, a lot of times guys will tighten that last wrap and cut while the line is really tight, and a lot of times that will actually pop the knot. I'm going to make it nice and tight, give it a little bit of slack, and cut while it's on the slack. You'll notice the knot comes out much less when you do it that way.

So here's my Buford head. I can trim it, I can reposition the fibers, I have more flexibility here. What I like to do is add a little bit of head cement. All these materials - the bucktail, the Krystal Flash, the thread, the stinger hooks - are all available at TridentFlyFishing.com. If you like what you see, I hope you subscribe so you can see more of our tying videos.

The last step is trimming the Buford head. I'm trying to get this as even as possible, just making these cuts and giving it a little haircut. It doesn't have to be perfect, but I'm creating this flat face to create resistance as the fly comes through the water. Now I'm going to take some head cement and paint it right into the Buford head. This one's pretty stiff - pike and musky with their big teeth will wreak some havoc on your material. I like having that glue on the Buford head. It creates a little bit of stability and I know the fly can withstand multiple chompings, which is what we're going for.

I'm pulling those fibers back and painting this right in. It's not going to be pretty at first, but adding this glue at the end will help maintain the Buford head so that you have that nice resistance going through the water. I'm essentially adding a hardening layer so it's more of a solid piece in the front of the fly - literally painting the head cement into those fibers and reinforcing that Buford head. Now this thing can take some abuse. I've added head cement to my thread and I'm going to let that dry. You can already see this is starting to stiffen a little bit, which will help with that resistance and maintaining that solid form in the front of your fly.

That's the Gator Aid. It's a great fly. It actually is quite easy to cast, in part because of the hollow tie - there's not a ton of material on here. It wicks water really well. It's a great shallow water pike fly. Thanks for watching.