Animas Lunch Report – 4/15/16 – Pike Mood

If targets of fly anglers have a soundtrack, then trout tend to crank up the bluegrass. Banjo and stand up bass for high country speckled specimens. Maybe the occasional streamer day requires some heavy hitting hip hop.

You could probably figure out a soundtrack for every species of fish that is fly fished if you wanted.

Bonefish get a little reggae while tarpon bump Jimmy Buffet.

Bass requires cranking the outlaw country. Cash or Hank III or Merle. “Tonight the bottle let me down…”

Love me some steelhead accompanied by great instrumental post-rock. Maybe Bjork if fishing is tough.

With pike, it kind of seems like a no-brainer. Metal of course. When the bite is on that the fish are ruthless, it’s time to spin Mastadon’s Blood Mountain. Suicidal Tenancies, Cro Mags, maybe even Metallica (Kill Em All or Ride the Lightning of course)

Andy McKinley Illustration

But when the bit is not on…it’s black metal. Droning and zoning. Depressive and Norwegian. This is the music to accompany my current pike mood. Drummings of rain on the roof and we sit here in the shop, awaiting the height of pike on the fly here in Southwest Colorado. Drummings of rain to match the blastbeats of A Blaze in the Northern Sky.

We are now stocked up on a few pike flies.

Tuning rods.

It will be here soon enough. Pike season arrives with the rains of April. Until then; we tie flies, tune rods, and illustrate with pen and ink this pike mood.