oneillbox

sounds like a load of old tosh to me... 5lb perch my anus !!

personally i would consider anything below about 6lb to be a 'jack pike' is everyone agreed ?

all water off a ducks back to me, i thought hthe muppet show finished years ago but im not so sure listening to some of the comments. i work in an operating theatre, so you can imagine the kinds of forceps etc i can get my hands on to take hooks out of jack pike that are STILL in the water.

in england we use fish like that for live bait, a couple of size 4 trebles..and away we go. but it would be very difficult to try and cast it !!!!!!

i dont even lift them out of the water, except their head. then the mouth opens naturally, and i ease the hooks out with my forceps using the pikes body weight as counter traction...saves handling the beautiful things anyway.

im hoping that they are feeding tomorrow, pressure is up and the temperature is up a few degrees. pardon my ignorance but are these good things. is it proven ?

unless its a perch kebab, then it will have spines which might damage your throat. but once again thanks for whoever told me that perch have spines, i had always wondered what the sharp bits were on the top. what is my next lesson from you guys..... that pike swallow fish head first !! im off piking tomorrow, if i catch one im going to eat it, and ill post a pic of it under my grill !!!

the pike could also have been my dinner !! but i spared it, just like i did the tench !! so everyone is happy (except you)... 2 lives saved in one foul swoop.

the tench was alive !! and it limped away in the water !! if the tench was manky and dead, i would not have had the stomach to remove it...

i just wish i had had my mobile with me, i could then have taken some pictures...

my PB was 27lb 4 oz about 5 years ago in the basingstoke canal. but i took a 22lb 3 oz beauty from my local lake a few weeks ago...

jesus, the welland is not that wide there either if i recall, monster fish for the young lad, great stuff. are you in spalding yogi, i live in sleaford...

only the tail of the tench was visible, but the bloody thing wanted to swallow a 12 inch mackeral to go with it...

i looked at the tench and thought how the hell could you use something that big for livebait..you would not even consider it.

was piking today at my local lake hotspot near sleaford in lincolnshire, id had 4 pike including one decent double when the guy on the next swim (there were only 2 of us fishing the lake) proclaimed that he had 'got a decent one' and would i give him a hand.(he had been wobbling a full mackeral) he tired out the pike and we lifted it from the water. as i went to weigh the blighter we noticed a dark coloured fishes tail in its throat. i grabbed the tail with my long needle holder forceps and extracted a still alive tench from the pikes gullet, the tench was the worse for wear but made a vague effort to swim away. the tench must have been about 3 lbs. (the pike weighed in eventually at 15lb 7oz without the tench in situ !!). i have never seen anything like this in my life, and i doubt i ever will again. it made a half decent day very memorable. god knows how long the decent tench had been 'in there'

cheers for the lecture, i only use livebaits so the float is always twitching, and secondly, i wait 2 seconds after the float has gone...then i nail the hopefully big [edited - John S]. i catch about 150 pike per season, and have never deep hooked one on livebait using this method.

for me its got to be the moment when the pike bung dissappears, then that few seconds of anticipation before you strike.....

i use size 6 hooks so the size is good, i dont pump the fish in, i keep a good tight bend in the rod. im sure its a striking issue as the swim is well over-hung (much like myself !!) and had lateral trees and hawthorn snags, so im restricted in rod movement. things got better today, took a 21lb 4oz beauty. dont know how to get the pic on here though, advice appreciated. regards ralph

i often use a pond near sleaford where i live, its very quiet and hardly fished by anyone, its been there for 100 years or more and i fished it as a lad... roach, perch, tench, pike, bream, eels....... the excitement of the place is notknowing what is in there as its so bloody old. not patrolled by anyone, not owned (seemingly) by anyone........

i use semi barbed snap tackle and am having lots of trouble keeping fish on the hook when ive struck, im setting the hooks wekk, holding the fish for about 10 seconds, then they are escaping. i can only think its because of the semi barbed rigs i am using, im very tempted to go back to the fully barbed varieties...

ill give you between 9 and 11 pound. but id give you only about one pound 50 for the jumper !! ... but good fish, congratulations mate.

i can guarantee you its a sea trout, i used to catch lots of them down the falkland islands.

bloody cloggy sods !!

ive offered him a fiver and want to purchase 2 pairs, ill see if its accepted, they look good value for the dosh.

the pike are out in force dont worry, my last two visits to a pit near sleaford in lincolnshire have yeilded an 11lb and a 20lb monster. both on livebait and each session only lasted 90 mins up until dark. ill be having another mini session tomorrow !! the 20lb (just over) beast i caught actually had fresh teeth marks on it from where something had bitten it......... **** !! im not swimming in there anymore dad, said my 14 year old son !!