Hello all,

I am going to revisit an old favorite Pike venue of mine but know that a problem awaits me that I must over-come.

The place is crawling with Signal Crayfish and I must therefore pop-up my baits.

I'm all OK with how to pop em up using foam, polystyrine (spelling!) etc but my main concern is how best to extra secure the fish to my rig so to stop it dropping off during a cast or fight?

How do you secure your popped-up dead-baits to you rig???

Cheers,
Jeff

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I take the end loop on my pop-ups and push it in through the mouth and out via the gill-flap and then attach it to the end treble of my trace.
I then stick the hooks into the bait.
The pop-up is now tight against the mouth of the bait and with the hooks inserted firmly into the flank, the pop-up acts as a buffer on the cast, stopping the hooks tearing free.
If I us a softer bait and that's pretty unusual, I'll wrap a couple of turns of clear bait elastic round the tail root/trace/upper treble.

Some nice info there Andy, cheers, I have been on the trail of thought that I would be inseting the floating material inside the fishes cavity, I totally forgot about these clip-on pop-up jobbies that you've pictured above!!!

They'll be much better to use, I was affraid of stuffed fish coming off and endangering Pike, but with this method it will be problem solved...

Thanks

Yup...im not a big fan of inserted bouyancy aids unless the Pike are really fussy but that's not that often.

Personally I would rather suspend my baits, even off a paternoster, although I would rather use a plain, simple float. Pop ups, to me, have an inherent problem for any pike that comes from underneath or from the same level, and that is a fairly rigid piece of line anchoring it to the bottom. If a pike noses up to it it might feel the line before it feels the bait. Atleast when it is suspended there is far less resistance for a suspicious pike.

I see your point there Peter, but I'm actually going to be fishing a fairly choppy weir pool where a normal float set up with a susspended bait would be difficult to hold in one place and control.

I appreciate that it might be good to allow a dead-bait to drift through the swim searching out the pike, but on this occasion I know where the Pike are most likely to be situated, which tight under an undercut bank...