pike fishing in weedy waters

[finlayson87]

Hi to all. first of all i have been looking over these forums all day and have found noting so i hope someone here can help me

 

i am going to be fishing for pike for the first time in the next few weeks and i am looking for as many rigs as i can find. most of all i would like to no how to float fish for pike in weedy waters with dead baits. i have a couple of carp rods and reels which i have filled with 18lb line and i have brought some trace 24lb and i have a few pier fishing floats but i have no bite alarms and for some reason never liked the idea of using them anyway. i am wondering if anyone here has any ideas of how to fish with these floats with dead baits while not getting snagged up every 5 minutes because of the amount of weeds that are in my local lakes. i have all the other kit i would need and money is not an issue but i would still prefer not to be buying bite alarms or very expensive kit as i only pleasure fish. oh also what are the best dead bates to use as i have seen people using half mackerel and things like that but i don't no if my float would hold that sort of weight so any other advice would be a huge help. many thanks peeps! oh and i will let ya'll no how i get on. Cheers guys! Finlayson

[Newt]

Hi and welcome to Anglers' Net. I don't have any advice but I'll move this one to a busier section of the forum for you.

[lozza]

Hi to all. first of all i have been looking over these forums all day and have found noting so i hope someone here can help me

 

i am going to be fishing for pike for the first time in the next few weeks and i am looking for as many rigs as i can find. most of all i would like to no how to float fish for pike in weedy waters with dead baits. i have a couple of carp rods and reels which i have filled with 18lb line and i have brought some trace 24lb and i have a few pier fishing floats but i have no bite alarms and for some reason never liked the idea of using them anyway. i am wondering if anyone here has any ideas of how to fish with these floats with dead baits while not getting snagged up every 5 minutes because of the amount of weeds that are in my local lakes. i have all the other kit i would need and money is not an issue but i would still prefer not to be buying bite alarms or very expensive kit as i only pleasure fish. oh also what are the best dead bates to use as i have seen people using half mackerel and things like that but i don't no if my float would hold that sort of weight so any other advice would be a huge help. many thanks peeps! oh and i will let ya'll no how i get on. Cheers guys! Finlayson

 

There are lots of different thing to take into consideration when targeting pike so a little more info would be needed. What time of the year do you intend to fish for them?

[GlennB]

i am going to be fishing for pike for the first time in the next few weeks and i am looking for as many rigs as i can find. most of all i would like to no how to float fish for pike in weedy waters with dead baits. i have a couple of carp rods and reels which i have filled with 18lb line and i have brought some trace 24lb and i have a few pier fishing floats but i have no bite alarms .....

 

Hi finlayson87, and welcome

 

I'm not even in the UK any more, so it's a few years since I fished for pike or even chipped in to the coarse forum here. And I was never a very experienced pike angler, but maybe that's a good reason why I might be able to offer advice? I was pretty much a novice too

 

Hooking your first pike on something like half a mackerel is like no other coarse fishing experience you'll ever have. Truth be told, there's only one thing that's really likely to be on the end of the line ..... and if you've read about pike, deep-hooking, teeth, gill-rakers, resting a hooked but tired fish, nursing a fish before release, forceps and wire cutters, suitable landing nets etc etc, you'll realise that getting the fish back in a healthy state is no gimme. What are you going to do if a loose barbed treble gets terminally snagged up in your (woven) carp landing net while a pike is attched to the other hook? Chew through it?

 

You might have covered all this beforehand, but have you actually done that research? The fact that you're starting on a weedy water and even mentioning bite alarms makes me worried. Was that a line bite, or a pike with your bait already half way down its neck? With a float you might well spot this, with a carp style bite alarm setup you might not ....

 

This might sound like a put-down. It isn't, it's well meant. If you don't take the right (even theoretical) knowledge, and equipment, you might find your first piking experience very unpleasant. Make plans and it could be the thrill of an angling lifetime

 

Now - if you started out luring on a relatively simple water you'd be much less likely to run into problems

 

Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but the pike gurus here used to step in pdq. Where are they all?

 

All the best !

[JV44]

Hi finlayson87, and welcome

 

I'm not even in the UK any more, so it's a few years since I fished for pike or even chipped in to the coarse forum here. And I was never a very experienced pike angler, but maybe that's a good reason why I might be able to offer advice? I was pretty much a novice too

 

Hooking your first pike on something like half a mackerel is like no other coarse fishing experience you'll ever have. Truth be told, there's only one thing that's really likely to be on the end of the line ..... and if you've read about pike, deep-hooking, teeth, gill-rakers, resting a hooked but tired fish, nursing a fish before release, forceps and wire cutters, suitable landing nets etc etc, you'll realise that getting the fish back in a healthy state is no gimme. What are you going to do if a loose barbed treble gets terminally snagged up in your (woven) carp landing net while a pike is attched to the other hook? Chew through it?

 

You might have covered all this beforehand, but have you actually done that research? The fact that you're starting on a weedy water and even mentioning bite alarms makes me worried. Was that a line bite, or a pike with your bait already half way down its neck? With a float you might well spot this, with a carp style bite alarm setup you might not ....

 

This might sound like a put-down. It isn't, it's well meant. If you don't take the right (even theoretical) knowledge, and equipment, you might find your first piking experience very unpleasant. Make plans and it could be the thrill of an angling lifetime

 

Now - if you started out luring on a relatively simple water you'd be much less likely to run into problems

 

Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but the pike gurus here used to step in pdq. Where are they all?

 

All the best !

Good post GlenB ,there are some good tips here http://www.pacgb.co.uk/ and if you are going in a couple of weeks what venue type as low DO levels in shallow waters can be lethal to the Pike recovery wise and they wolf the bait down this time of year so if you dont know how to handle fish it could be curtains for it .

Where abouts in the UK are you as going with an experienced Piker is the way forward and depending on where you are someone on here could take you out ,Not a dig as has been said but learning to handle deep hooked Pike on your tod aint fun .

Let us know where you are and hopefully someone can buddy up for your first sesh but waqiting till Autumn could be a good idea depending upon venue Steve.

[Dick Dastardly]

Totally agree the warm months are not the best time to learn the essential handling and unhooking skills. I will gladly meet up with you in the Autumn to show you the ropes if you can wait.

[finlayson87]

sorry i must of not been clear enough. im going fishing for pike for the first time using dead bait. only ever fished for them with lures and light weight tackle. i no all the basics of unhooking and landing the fish and also no about the fishes delicateness towards over fishing and rough handling despite them being a hardy predator. i would just like to no some of the best ways to present a dead bait in weedy waters without using a bite alarm and just using a float and the other bits that go with it. thanks

[Andy Macfarlane]

Why the aversion to bite-alarms??

 

In the case of pike fishing, they're pretty much a necessity, rather than a luxury or a means of being lazy. Pike bait-fishing sessions are rarely short affairs and an alarm allows you to free yourself from watching a float the whole time you're there. Even a short 3 hour session, is a long time to stare at a float.

 

It's not waggler fishing with a single hook, where the consequences of accidental deep-hooking are minimal. The accidental death of a single large pike, can have serious implications for the fishery as a whole.

 

No matter what anyone says, I don't believe anyone can watch a float all of the time. I just don't and having done 1000s of hours on the bank, fishing for pike, I'm not going to debate the point. People do look elsewhere, go the toilet, read texts, pour cups of coffee, sort tackle and so on. It only takes a few seconds to deep-hook a pike and runs almost always happen when you're doing something else.

 

An alarm costs 20 quid, so it's not going to bankrupt anyone.

 

Anyway, to the float rig. It's not very complicated and don't let weeds bother you too much. I used to actively avoid casting a bait into weed, because I didn't want to drag up weeds round my tackle, potentially lose fish or hide my bait where the pike can't find it.

 

As long as you have 18lb mono, minimum and you've already stated that you do, along with stout enough rods and reels, you shouldn't have any serious problems fishing a float. Perhaps if you were using a heavy lead and your rig was being dragged down into thick plants with heavy roots, you might have to reconsider, but fishing a float shouldn't cause you too may problems. If the weed is so thick that you think it's too much, it's probably best not to fish there, or at least rake yourself a swim, with enough clearance to play a fish in.

 

Leger Rig in weed with a bouyant leger stem....

 

 

Float rig (can be used with deads too)....

 

 

Sunken Float Leger Rig....

 

 

Pictures from www.hooklinks.co.uk/pike