I go bear hunting in 2 weeks up in northern saskatchewan. Going to pike fish a bunch too and taking my fly rod. I have an 8wt that I bought for saltwater. I am hoping that is good enough.

Any recommendation on leaders and flies?

Pike is my favorite freshwater fish to catch on a fly rod. I used to fish for them a lot and caught a lot of hammer handles on a 5wt then lost a big one and got an 8wt, which is plenty for fish in the 40" range. Probably would want a bigger rig for a really big pike but I've never caught one. I've caught a lot on dahlberg divers in white, olive, and chartreuse. Oh and I use these twist on steel leaders I think I got at orvis but my old fishing buddy used some sort of braid and it worked for him.

I've caught 40"+ pike on 5 weight and 30"+ on 4 weight, it was a lot of fun. But I'm a big fan of lighter when possible. Your 8wt will be more than fine.

any suggestions on good fly companies to order pike flies from? Prefer to order from a fly shop rather than scheels or BPS.

I've spent a small fortune at bigY. I think they're all made in Malaysia unless you spend big bucks from independent tiers. Pike aren't that smart or picky and they will get chewed up anyway

Charismatic Megafauna said:

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I've spent a small fortune at bigY. I think they're all made in Malaysia unless you spend big bucks from independent tiers. Pike aren't that smart or picky and they will get chewed up anyway

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Yep. Pike are dumb but they do have teeth. I'd say a big streamer on a heavy leader/tippet. I bet a big sparkle minnow would work well.