| Zen | Biog. | Angling Trust | Diary | The Dyke | Thames |
| Home | Tackle | Pike | Stuff | How to... | Old Bob | Last Cast |
| Anglesey | Ponds | Knots | The Sea | Links | Fishwives' Corner |
PikeBeing a summary of what I know and have learnt about pike and all other things pike related.
|
![]() |
Pike "Rules"
And lastly. There are many ways to catch any fish - these guidelines and methods worked for me, and I am sure will work again (watch this space), but I am also as sure there any many equally good systems and methods. |
The other advantage of VB hooks used in this way is the instant strike. Pike pick up dead baits, cross ways in their mouth. with one or 2 hook rigs you can strike straight away - I usually wait a few seconds (literally), to make sure the bait is well held - using this time to slowly take up any slack in the line. I've missed the odd run (who hasn't?) but not had any swallowed baits more to the point. It's worth a quick diversion here to natter about how a pike takes a bait. When fishing on the Dyke, certainly summer time when the water was clear, a lot of pike could be seen and stalked individually. (This teaches you about keeping low, quiet and behind the fish). You also learn that it is more effective and less likely to scare a fish, to cast past it, (not over) and tow the bait past the eyeline, not too close, anywhere within 3-4 feet is good, and then let it drop. In this water worms were the main bait. The most instructive bit, was to watch a pike take a dead bait or worms in this type of fishing. The pike will slowly line itself up on the bit, using only the pectoral and other fins, then gradually getting more and more agitated (a bit like a cat about to pounce) , will then dart at the bait and grab it. It's a pounce, no mistake about that. You get a flick of the head sometimes, then the fish remains fairly still and chomps a bit. Which is where you hit it...if you leave it a while it will (with a few chomps) move off a distance. This is the first "run" at the end of which a pike will turn the bait to swallow it (if a fish bait). Not all takes are like this and pike will snatch at a passing bait, and also chase slow moving baits, and I have seen them "shadow" slow moving lures and bait for some distance (more often than not without taking, as I said proverbially curious). Once when casting a worm bait only 5 yards to a few bream, a large pike (15lb+) swam casually 10 yards in from the centre of the water, picked up the worm bait and swam off again, in one continuous movement - (I missed the strike, or it dropped the bait). See rule 20.... It's certainly the case that moving baits tend to be hit harder, but you might expect that as the pike has to be moving in the first place to catch it. Certainly all hardest takes I have had, have been to slow moving dead baits, or just recently stopped moving. Anyhoo, for the float fished bait I would put the main line through a link-swivel and using a plastic bead and braided stop knot to set the depth (easy to change floats or to a bottom fishing rig, no weak points on the main line). The float was attached to the link-swivel (usually a small loaded stick), but this way I could change it, or take it off, on a whim. For the bottom fished rig, I would attach the trace directly to the main line, and use stick of balsa wood inside the fish to make it float. I prefer this to foam, as I know it's biodegradable, and cheap, and can be whittled and cut to the right size for the bait. The downside is that is does absorb water and the buoyancy will change. Model shops sell cheap packs of odd cuts, which will last you a couple of years. I would pinch a swan/AAA shot or 2 onto the trace just above the swivel (or further up sometimes). Check the bait actually floats near the bank. Every time you reel it in, check it's still floating...wood gets wet, the baits start off with air in them... Chuck them both in (did I say chuck? I mean "cast" obviously) in opposite directions is sensible. Let the float drift, it almost certainly will. You'll cover more water. After 20 minutes reel in the the bottom bait (slowly) about a third of the distance ("enticing" we called this)...the bottom fished bait will be bobbing along about a foot from the bottom. Every 45-60 minutes or so you would fish out a swim. The few moments after reeling a popped up bait in will sometimes see a real slam of a bite, be ready for it, bite indicators can get flipped out of you fingers for sure. I always retrieve pike baits slowly with pauses. You'd be surprised how often that works. When you have fished out the swim, you tie the rods to the rod pod (that's what the cable ties are for) and move up a swim. The crossword book is for the periods you are sat waiting for a run. The four colour pen is just for fun. Well it works for me. For small to medium sized waters this allows you to cover a lot of water in a days' fishing ( on Pike Pit (say) one 30-40 yard cast and one reel in would cover the entire swim). While I would not say this is an infallible method, after a certain amount of time at a water, you do start to discern a pattern - certain swims and area produce more runs and pike than others. Some never produce a fish. This may be for a number of reasons, but I would think that features and food are at the bottom of the patterns. I found it is worth varying the time of day on swims as well. There are patterns that favour certain swims at dawn and dusk and others in the middle of the day. Again I suspect movement of the bait/prey fish is the key. For example the good double lower down the page, were taken near a bed of reeds (the floated bait was right up against them). While runs during the day here were not unusual, in the evening as dusk fell small fish movement by and in these reeds would increase, and the pike would move in to feed on the small stuff (rudd and roach in this case). I would regard these two fish as "prowlers" as well, going by the reports of catches all up the northern bank a a few on the south east corner. you could even speculate on a regular route. You'll certainly figure out where the "lurkers" tend to be with this method - I would say that "prowlers" will often turn up in the same places, as a good place to ambush with a food source, is a good place to ambush with a food source, whatever your inclination as a pike. How do you tell them apart? Good question. It would help if one sort or the other would wear little pike T-shirts with "Born to Prowl" on them, but they don't. Pity. My feeling is that only by fishing a water a lot will you get that information, but you can glean a lot from other (pike) anglers, a good few of which on the waters I fished had one or 2 swims and stuck to them...well it's a good swim isn't it? While on the subject of information, pike gossip can be one of the most distorted with tales of monsters all over the place, but few real reports of actual fish...(I'm probably as bad). |
1994-95 Pike seasonThe 1994-95 season, saw me re-vitalised which given the dire previous season, can only be put down to the eternal optimism of the angler. I only kept a diary for the first few weeks of the season and then for some reason stopped. I think that having conquered the demons of the previous season, I was happy to take things less seriously. Or something. This season I put 2 baits in the water, one was "popped up" off the bottom (using balsa wood sticks stuck inside the fish) and the other was float fished about 3 feet down. I still used sprats on occasion, but my favourite (and most productive) baits were gudgeon and trout, neither native to the water I fished. I bought the trout and caught the gudgeon myself. Both baits were injected with oils and I used salmon, sardine and tuna oils. As I never took a fish on bottom fished baits on Hambridge Lake, I switched to float fishing 2 baits at different depths. 27th September 1994: Have got a membership of RDAA I went to Hambridge Lake - and took a 9½lb pike on a flat fished gudgeon, with salmon oil injected into it. I got distracted by a commotion in the NW corner, which used up the rest of my session. 2nd October 1994: 1 x 2lb fish on the corner of Pike Pit on a float fished smelt. I also missed a take on a sprat while it was being retrieved. This was popped up of the bottom on a ledger rig (a couple of swan shot on the top of the trace). 3rd October 1994: 1 x 6lb fish on Long Lake on a float fished sprat from the SE corner. The bait was drifted up against the reed bed there. I also missed a take on the swim where the feeder stream runs into the lake. 9th October 1994: 1 x 5lb fish on Hambridge Lake, on a float fished trout, which has sardine attractor oil injected. Missed a take on the same set-up an hour later. 16th October 1994: Returning to Hambridge Lake I banked a 7½lb and a 10½lb fish (the latter with one eye), both taken on a float fished sprat with sardine oil. I think I abandoned smelt at this point. 22nd October 1994: Back on the Thatcham Pits, I took a single 6¼lb fished at the SW corner of Long Lake on a bottom fished popped up trout, anointed with sardine oil. 2rd October 1994: On the back arm of Hambridge Lake I had a 2lb and a 10½lb fish both on float fished trout and sardine oil and a further 4lb fish on a float fished sprat with sardine oil. The double was the same fish as caught on 16th I imagine, going by the same missing eye. I stopped recording at this point, having spent 5 weeks with a change of venue and some method changes I had banked twice as many fish (10) as the previous year already. I certainly went to Hambridge several more times and caught at least a fish a session, but none bigger than 10½lb, despite covering most of the lake at one time or another looking for an alleged larger fish. About ¾ of the fish caught in this lake came from a small arm of the water on the South bank. December(?)1994 Grantham gravel pit: I spent the week end with the brother and we went for a day's fishing at a gravel pit over near Grantham, I forget the name. The water was large, the weather was clear and bright and fairly cold, to point of ice forming on the lines. We went around the back of the lake on the basis that we would have some shelter from the wind, which was slight. As we knew nothing else about the water, that was as good a reason as any. The water was gin clear, so I opted to pole fish as far out as I could and put out a popped up sprat for pike around about 30 yards out and even then I reckoned I could see the bait on the bottom. I rigged a slider float for the dead bait - the water was deeper than a rod length. Stap me if only half an hour later away went the float and after a lively tussle I banked a nice pike of around 12lb, in nice condition. Boded well. Not. That was it for us both all day - I don't think either of us even had a bite after that, on regular tackle or dead baits. With hindsight we should have roved and dead baited, we'd have been warmer... Slightly flukey, but think how far away a popped up bait could be seen in water that clear. |
| Back to the top of the page... |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
All information, text and pictures, for this web site is copyright © by the author, (who chooses to identify himself here as "Anotherangler"), unless otherwise specified. It's just possible this site contains information unsuitable for overly sensitive folk with low self-esteem, no sense of humour and/or an irrational belief system. If you like it let me know. If you don't, I'll try not to lie awake at night worrying about it ;-) |
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
Wednesday, 08-Feb-2012 21:38:35 GMT
|