Help with Pike

[Bowsa]

Hi All

 

I'm relatively new to this site and hope I'm not about to completely embarrass myself.

 

After many years of trout fishing I've recently tried some of pike fishing. Taken a few over 10lb on deadbait but may I ask...when it comes to dead baiting how long do you leave a bait out on a cast? I'm using lampray and mackrel and just wondered... do you reel it in for a recast, how often do you change bait, etc. If it helps most places I fish are still water.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

Bowsa

[kirisute]

Hi All

 

I'm relatively new to this site and hope I'm not about to completely embarrass myself.

 

After many years of trout fishing I've recently tried some of pike fishing. Taken a few over 10lb on deadbait but may I ask...when it comes to dead baiting how long do you leave a bait out on a cast? I'm using lampray and mackrel and just wondered... do you reel it in for a recast, how often do you change bait, etc. If it helps most places I fish are still water.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

Bowsa

 

it depends; it really does.

Pike will smell a deadbait and will eventually home in on some free grub. But that could take hours. your best chance might simply be to relocate your bait every 30 mins or so.

you might also find that bringing your bait in a few feet every 15 mins or so will produce some results.

i tend to check out possible "lurking" locations for pike; cast the bait into them; give it 30 mins or so then move on to somewhere else. it really is just a waiting game! on top of that you might find some success with taking along a spinning rig as well. then you can put your dead bait out and leave it and then spend the time spinning around the area to pick up any pike that are feeling a bit more like hunting.

[Bowsa]

Thanks Kirisute

 

Much appreciated, nice to know I'm not getting it too wrong so far.

 

Incidently, my first pike was taken on a spinner, though I'm not bragging about it as it was hardly a "rod bender"!!! So far I've had more luck on the deadbaits so have tended down that route.

[Andy Macfarlane]

I more of a sit it out and wait for them to come to me type but that can mean no action for hours and hours but usually it pays off and I've had 150lbs+ of pike from an area the size of a snooker table, after waiting 6 hours for a run.

 

I suppose if I was fishing rivers and canals or featureless stillwaters, I'd be more inclined to leapfrog a rod every half hour or so.

[Steve Burke]

Far from making yourself look silly this is one of the best questions for ages!

 

My own experience is that, to a certain extent, it depends on the venue. On a new water I fish a mixture of static and recast/moved baits to establish a pattern, with one rod being static and the other rod/rods being frequently recast or retrieved a yard or two.

 

However on the vast majority I've found that "bait and wait" tactics aren't nearly as effective as a more active approach. This especially applies to waters with lots of features. Even on those that have relatively few features though it's amazing how often a recast bait, even to the exact same spot, gets an almost immediate take! It's almost seems to attract the pike in itself, or at any rate induce a take.

 

Additionally recasting/moving a bait in a new swim is an excellent way of finding the hottest part. All too often they'll be one small area, and it can be really small, that gets far more takes than others just a few yards away. Indeed, on some waters it can be just a matter of feet! Yes, if you leave a bait outside the hottest area then if the pike change from a neutral to an active feeding state they might seek it out, or an active pike may move into the swim. But in the meantime you could be catching a whole lot more by inducing a take, and you'll quite likely have got the other pike anyway.

 

The main exception is when I've found a really hot area and then I'll often keep one bait there the whole time I'm in the swim. I work on the premise that why fish anywhere but the best spot?

 

However there's rarely more than one such real hotspot, and playing the percentages I find that recasting/moving baits on the other rod/rods to be more effective, in most cases markedly so.

 

I've mentioned moving the bait. This can be as effective as recasting. It also means that baits last longer. Sometimes I'll move a bait several yards, especially if I'm unfamiliar with the swim. Other times it'll be just a matter of feet. So often a take comes very quickly afterwards.

 

Finally, don't forget that location is in 3D. In other words the depth you're presenting your bait is also important. In fact it can make a difference between a mega catch and blanking. On many of the waters I've pike fished over the last 35 years bottom baits have been less productive than off-bottom ones. And I'm not talking about just a few inches off the bottom, but rather in midwater or even near the surface, including over deep or even very deep water.

 

One of my favourite presentations for active deadbaiting is my own version of a sunken float paternoster, and I'm frequently changing its depth. This is really simple with this rig - all you do is slacken or tighten the line. So often this leads to an immediate take!

 

How frequent is frequently? Normally it's a change of depth every 15 minutes until I establish the taking depth on the day. It's amazing how often that remains the same throughout the session, although it does vary with a change of light. Then if I'm searching different areas of the swim I'll also be moving the bait back a few yards every 30 minutes or so depending on the topography of the swim, and recasting roughly every hour to an hour and a half. The same goes for a legered bait, although here of course I'm not changing how far off the bottom I'm fishing it.

 

You can read more about other advantages and how to make the rig at http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/forums/Sunken-...oat+paternoster. There's also a link there to what at one time became almost a blog ("A Grand Day Out"), and this nicely demonstrates my active style of piking.

Edited February 3, 2011 by Steve Burke

[Brian Carragher]

Might seem a daft question but whereabouts in the N/E are you fishing and no I'm not looking for new venues, I've got a few of my own to go on

 

Various venues respond to different baits or regular bait changes depending on water temperatures

 

If you have plenty of baits and don't mind regular recasting and using baits then in reality you can change as often as you wish but generally you tend to develop a feeling for when its the right time to change rather than a rigid hourly change and that feeling can alter from day to day and from venue to vemue

[Bowsa]

Thanks for your help Steve, much appreciated.

[Bowsa]

Might seem a daft question but whereabouts in the N/E are you fishing and no I'm not looking for new venues, I've got a few of my own to go on

 

Hi Brian

 

Thanks for that

 

Most of my fishing round North East is in County Durham for trout.

 

I spend weekends and holidays in Southern Scotland having a go for pike, perch and tench. I took my son for a weeks fishing some time back to Southern Scotland and its become a regular haunt now for us.

 

And can't resist saying, I was at St James's Park on Saturday...what a game!

[Steve Burke]

If you have plenty of baits and don't mind regular recasting and using baits then in reality you can change as often as you wish but generally you tend to develop a feeling for when its the right time to change rather than a rigid hourly change and that feeling can alter from day to day and from venue to vemue

 

I know it won't help beginners but Brian makes a good point. With experience you'll develop a sense of when to change something, the same as with any other species. Good match anglers have really fine tuned this ability, especially with their feeding.

 

It's not a question of clock-watching of course, and some days I don't fish as actively as others. Sometimes there's a reason, but it may be something as simple as laziness when I just want to chill out. On these lazy days I rarely catch as much. But I still enjoy the trip just the same.