Two deep hooked fish in one session - Not Good

[Dales]

I went to Bury Hill last Saturday for my first day's fishing of the new predator season. I was in high hopes of getting a Zander as the conditions looked good mild, wet and overcast although I was a little unsure about the new single hook only rule. I had tied up a few single hook traces during the week in preparation, but when I went to get my ticket I noticed that they were selling double single hook rigs and so bought a few as I thought that they would increase my chances of a hook up.

 

Well the day started well and I had a 6lb Zander on my favoured Lamprey Tail hooked in the scissors on my single hook rig. Generaly using trebles I hook them inside the mouth and its a good hook hold and easy enough to remove. Feeling rather pleased with myself I was thinking this single hook business is not so bad. However I had a number of missed runs through out the morning and a few fish that I connected with that soon fell off. Most of the ones that came off felt like very small fish, but one felt like a good fish probably a Pike, but who knows maybe a Carp. I will not even entertain the thought it might have been a double figure Zed . So the singles were producing more runs then the standard snap tackle, but I was a little miffed about the one that got away that was not a giant Zed.

 

Around one in the afternoon the sun put in a brief appearence and so I decided to have a crack at a Pike and bought in one of my Lamprey baits and went through my bait box to find the smallest fish that would suit the small single hook. Nothing looked the part and so I cut a Joey Mackeral in half and mounted it on a single, it looked rubbish and so I changed to one of the bought double single hook rigs. I hooked the first single in the fishes mouth and tried to put the second along the mackerals back, but the hook just cut through the flesh. This is when I made a cardinal sin and cut the mackeral down so that the second hook was at the end of the bait. So I had a single hook at the front and back of the bait. Unsure of the rig I cast out and after 20 minutes I had a run and struck, but again the fish fell off. So I mounted another section of mackeral in the same fashion and cast to the same spot. This time I had a slight bleep on the alarm and struck instantly and the fish was on and I landed a nice little Pike of just over 7 lb, one of the bailiffs came over and wanted a picture, I was fine with that and I notice its on the Bury Hill website But when I went to unhook it, it was hooked well down in the throat, so no pressure with bailiff watching me and agreeing that it looked bad, but I was confident that I could deal with it and popped the hooks out no problem as I have handled plenty of Pike and the barbless singles did make it easy, but this was my first deep hooked one of many years. So quick picture and weigh and the fish was returned and the feeling I should have known better then to mount a hook at the back of the bait.

 

I changed over to just one single for the rest of the session, but about an hour before closing I decided to give the double hook rig another go but this time with Lamprey but this time I mounted the second hook about an inch from the end of the bait. Still a very iffy looking presention with the danger of deep hooking. Well it happened, I had a little knock on the top of the rod and struck in to a Zed, another fish around 6 lb, but the trace was well gone with just one tiny bit of hook showing. Another Bailiff was setting up in swim next to me for some night Carp Fishing and he took a look and agreed the only thing was to cut the trace as tight to the hook as possable. I have only had to do this twice on very small Jacks in all my years of fishing.

 

I know I took chances with the positioning of the hooks on my bait and so will not be repeating that and posted this incase others are going to be playing around with singles. It's like all the years of experience of setting up baits went from my mind and I rigged up dangerous baits. I think in the future I will try the single hook and maybe try hair rigs.

 

The double single hook rig was a disaster for me, but then I took liberties with my set up. I have been thinking this over and wondered if I set the second hook much further up the bait as I would with snap tackle by sowing it along the back of the bait so its mounted like the hook in a shad. The reason I was mounting it at the back was because it pulled through the flesh when placed at the distance I wanted but it was fine when threaded through the body of the fish and out the back.

 

So a question, if the fish swallowed the thread used to sow the hook on with would it do them any harm? I would have thought it has to be better then swallowing hooks and trace?

Edited October 8, 2010 by Dales

[AddictedToScopex]

A very honest report showing others a valuable lesson. Myself included as I was considering some deadbaiting this winter.

[Dales]

A very honest report showing others a valuable lesson. Myself included as I was considering some deadbaiting this winter.

 

Yeah I feel bad and guilty as I knew that mounting a hook at the back was stupid. It's like I ignored all my years of Pike fishing and went ahead and done what I know is wrong. So despite it making me look like a right idiot, if it makes others think twice and not repeat my mistakes it's worth sharing the experience as its that time when many anglers may be predator fishing for the first time or like me radically changing the methods they are used too.

[Fours]

Yeah I feel bad and guilty as I knew that mounting a hook at the back was stupid. It's like I ignored all my years of Pike fishing and went ahead and done what I know is wrong. So despite it making me look like a right idiot, if it makes others think twice and not repeat my mistakes it's worth sharing the experience as its that time when many anglers may be predator fishing for the first time or like me radically changing the methods they are used too.

Nice to know there is considerate and helpful advice on here.Thanks for taking the time to provide both.

[stooby]

Yeah I feel bad and guilty as I knew that mounting a hook at the back was stupid. It's like I ignored all my years of Pike fishing and went ahead and done what I know is wrong. So despite it making me look like a right idiot, if it makes others think twice and not repeat my mistakes it's worth sharing the experience as its that time when many anglers may be predator fishing for the first time or like me radically changing the methods they are used too.

 

 

Me being one of them, I have never done any kind of pike/zander fishing before but I shall hopefully be giving it a go in the next month or so, so some good words of advice, thanks for sharing Dale!

 

On the other note, well done on your catch!!

 

Cheers,

 

Stu...

[Dales]

Me being one of them, I have never done any kind of pike/zander fishing before but I shall hopefully be giving it a go in the next month or so, so some good words of advice, thanks for sharing Dale!

 

On the other note, well done on your catch!!

 

Cheers,

 

Stu...

 

Yeah the single hook does seem to offer a better presention and if pressured fish at Bury Hill fall for it and it leads to extra runs/bites it's worth looking in to. I talked to a few other anglers on the day and some were very happy with the singles and others blamed them for not catching, but I think the issue is not the hooks and rigs but the way we were using them. It's why I posted this as one chap who never caught said that he planned to try a trailing hook next time behind the bait as he had a number of missed runs and so thought it worth pointing out the problems of getting it wrong. To be honest good anglers adapt to fishery rules whether it be use barbless, barbed, single hooks or various bait bans. I know I made an error of judgement, just need to make sure it does not happen again.

 

Good luck with the predator fishing, there are some very good Pike anglers on this forum. Me not being one of them So it's worth reading any posts they make on Pike fishing. I think predator fishing is an area of angling that you can never know to much about and it's an area that is less forgiving on your quarry when you get it wrong. I think I had become a little complacent in my predator fishing.

[Guerilla]

Hmmm, the move to ban trebles was met with some controversy from many camps, particularly the PAC as it appears that they were not consulted prior to the enforcement.

It is my understanding that the treble ban was to protect predators as it was widely thought that singles do less damage than conventional snap tackle setups. This is obviously not the case if single rigs are more likely to be swallowed, although in this unfortunate instance, surely single hooks are likely to give the fish more chance than a treble assuming its size is comparable? You did mention sizing a bait to the "small single hook."

 

What sort of bite indication were you using? You mention an alarm with regards to one capture, but another only suggests seeing the rod tip knock.

It may have just been two instances of bad luck; it's the start of the predator season and the water temperatures are still high (15deg here last weekend) so perhaps the fish were just aggressively feeding and you were simply unlucky.

 

Given that baliffs were present for both deep hooked fish, I hope the fishery takes note.

 

Incidentally, there is a very active thread discussing single hooks for pike (again) here, after it was discussed at the recent PAC meeting:

http://www.totalcoarsefishing.com/cgi-bin/...?num=1285526402

 

and a possible hooking method could be to hair rig the baits using tags, such as here (assuming OBH allow this?):

http://www.piketrace.co.uk/hairrigs.html

[Dales]

Hmmm, the move to ban trebles was met with some controversy from many camps, particularly the PAC as it appears that they were not consulted prior to the enforcement.

It is my understanding that the treble ban was to protect predators as it was widely thought that singles do less damage than conventional snap tackle setups. This is obviously not the case if single rigs are more likely to be swallowed, although in this unfortunate instance, surely single hooks are likely to give the fish more chance than a treble assuming its size is comparable? You did mention sizing a bait to the "small single hook."

 

What sort of bite indication were you using? You mention an alarm with regards to one capture, but another only suggests seeing the rod tip knock.

It may have just been two instances of bad luck; it's the start of the predator season and the water temperatures are still high (15deg here last weekend) so perhaps the fish were just aggressively feeding and you were simply unlucky.

 

Given that baliffs were present for both deep hooked fish, I hope the fishery takes note.

 

Incidentally, there is a very active thread discussing single hooks for pike (again) here, after it was discussed at the recent PAC meeting:

http://www.totalcoarsefishing.com/cgi-bin/...?num=1285526402

 

and a possible hooking method could be to hair rig the baits using tags, such as here (assuming OBH allow this?):

http://www.piketrace.co.uk/hairrigs.html

 

All the rods were set up with fox micron Pike drop off alarms and I struck the last Zander on just a slight twitch of the tip of the rod before the alarm had a chance to register. To be honest I think for Zander at least you get much better bite indication from Delkims with a front bobbin attached as this is the method I have used before for Zander with out any issues. I do feel that at this time of year they can take a bait quickly before registering on drop off indicators. i normally only use the Fox Pike alarms on Pike only waters.

 

The max size that they are allowing is a size 4, when you think of the size baits often used for Pike it does present a problem with achieving a good hook up before the fish swallows the bait and this will just encourage the use of very small baits so more of the hook is available, which in my opinion can be swallowed a lot quicker.

 

I will certainly be giving my rigs some more thought before my next visit.

 

Many thanks for the links, I will give them a read.

Edited October 8, 2010 by Dales

[Dales]

and a possible hooking method could be to hair rig the baits using tags, such as here (assuming OBH allow this?):

http://www.piketrace.co.uk/hairrigs.html

 

Cheers, These rigs do look like a better option and think I will feel more confident with the full hook free to take hold before the fish takes the bait down.

 

Many thanks for posting this.

[isispete]

Sorry to sound like a salesman but have you tried circle hooks?

The theory is that they don't penetrate the fish until the hook turns on exiting the jaws.

The fact is that it really works. Once you are sure you have a take you tighten slowly and only carefully pull the hook in and then lean on it.

Even if a pike (or zed) swallows the hook it is unlikely to get a hookhold and will be drawn out until it exits the scissors. Please give it a try. I have discarded the 'operating theatre tray' comprising 12" forceps, long nosed pliers, wire cutters, glove etc. etc and now just need a pair of forceps to twist the hook out. No opening of jaws, no trebles caught in the landing net, no deep-hooking. Wish I'd tried these years ago. Wouldn't use anything else now.