The Live Sessions: Rabbit

 Many thanks to all who took the time to join me again last night for an other stream, and thank you for the generous donations as well!

Last night live stream:

 

So yes, as you saw in the stream i am a big fan of rabbit zonker for pike flies, and also for any other predatory fish out there. A simple rabbit strip on a hook will catch you so many species time and time again, no matter where you are in the world, in fresh or salt water.

To recap the stream, this is where i buy my rabbit pelts: 

https://www.englishrabbitfur.com/ 

I did not purchased from that store since Brexit, not sure how this will impact the prices. If you guys know a similar supplier, please let us know, contact me directly, or leave a comment on any of my social media. I'm pretty sure something similar exist in the EU.

Here's a couple of my tying videos now of the flies we tied last night:

1:The Bunnyciever

2: The Pike Toad:

In bonus i will include the "Heavy Bunny" this is a fly tied for Aimara (Wolf fish) .I was supposed to go to French Guyana last Novembre, but the trip was cancelled due to Covid. This fly is not made to break distance record, its more to lob in between rocks in heavy flow to pull out these amazing predators. But its made with rabbit i'm in sure a similiar tie will work for pike:

This is the video on how i cut my zonkers, remember not to cut against a board as you will cut all those hairs trapped under. Raise the pelt a little before cutting it:

 And remember: don't be afraid in using small flies for pike, in fact after the stream i looked into my top 5 biggest pikes on the fly (with two over 15kgs) and 4 of them were caught using small flies (under 15cm) and three off them were caught on a bunny.

An other bonus using smaller flies is that you can always get that surprise, bonus fish especially on rivers here. Big brown trouts or large perch are often tempted by a bunny , even if this one was intended to catch pike.

To finish a few pics of pikes that fell to small bunny flies:

Big winter girl, caught on a bunny fished slowly and deep on a S6 line

This one grabbed a tiny bunny intended for a rainbow trout( caught on a 4 weight)

Mid June pike caught on a black bunny with body tubing head.

My first big Alaskan tank...Caught on a Chewbacca.

Bunnies lined up for the next day deep in the Alaskan bush.

The original Chewbacca!

 I will end this post with a video of a small tie i call the PugsNcBunny, this fly has caught me the most species on the fly including many saltwater ones, and mixed is footage of that huge girl caught on a four weight (fight lasted exactly 5mins 46...all filmed on the GoPro)

Ps: Someone asked if i use finn raccoon, and yes i do: