Barbel versus Pike

[Guest Danny H]

Sorry about the title wanted to get the attention of people who might be able to answer the question.

 

Summer pike fishing has come into a bit of stick lately and I have a question, this is not an attack on any other style of fishing.

 

I have heard it said that the Pike is fragile.

 

Why is it the only fish that people worry about being caught in summer.

Isn't a barbel fighting itself to defeat all the way in summer, or a tench/ Carp ? And often the fight takes ten times as long as a lure caught pike.

So what's going on, am I just hearing old wives tales regurgatated, or do we have any

knowledgable facts ?

 

Deep hooking is not the issue I'm discussing here, avoiding that for a minute, I'm just talking about the hooking/playing/unhooking of a fish.

 

Should people clammer to stop all summer fishing except bream due to the fact that they don't fight to exhaustion?

 

Fish biologists feel free to answer.

[Guest Ken L]

I think we're firmly in old wives tale teritory here.

Having caught thousands of pike on lures in the summertime, I'm yet to have one go belly up after the fight. If it were happening with some delay after an apparently healthy kick off, I'd have expected to see them comming past me as I continue to work my way downstreem, to have noticed a drop off in numbers on the stretches that I fish regularly or to see dead fish on subsequent visits - none of these have happend.

 

All large fish will need some time and possibly a little assistance to recover after a fight (I assume that the choice of barbel for comparison was not an accident) but so long as we take a little care, why not enjoy pike at their peak of fitness instead of freezing your butt of trying to catch them when they're spawn laden using techniques that inevitably result in a proportion of deep hooked fish ?

[Guest M Godliman]

I have to say straight out that I only ever lure fish so I am hoplessly prejudiced on the subject,and in many ways the summer is the best time, so that if it were ever banned I would have a big problem.I did a long time ago fish for other species like an all rounder,but have now lost interest completely.I can't explain exactly why it's just a fact and probably puts me at a disadvantage in many circumstances,but not enough to put me off.

I am always surprised at the certainty with witch one set of anglers can feel so disaproving of another set that they imagine they themselves to be beyond critisism for anything that they do.

If you put your mind to it, if you want to, it's just about possible to critisize just about any angling practice for something.

Martin.

[Guest trent.barbeler]

Martin,

 

Sadly, you have driven the nail straight in.

 

All of us, if we speak honestly, have at some time or another criticised an angling practise.

 

Now a days, being older and certainly a lot wiser I shy away whenever I can from such doing's.

 

Criticism only becomes so when an opinion is taken badly or the wrong way. We are only human after all and very often display far more stupidity that the species we all fish for.

 

At least, for the most part, fishes can live in harmony for nearly all of the time.

 

Seeing as we all watch fish so much, one would assume that some of this harmonious behaviour would have rubbed off by now.

[Guest Danny H]

Originally posted by Danny H:

Summer pike fishing has come into a bit of stick lately and I have a question, this is not an attack on any other style of fishing.

 

 

B]

 

I quote from my own post so Trent this is not an anti barbel ramble.

 

Before this degenerates into yet another "your fishing versus my fishing fiasco", can somebody please give me some FACTS oneway or the other.

As a lure angler all I ever hear is anti summer pike fishing, not any other species, I want to hear some hard evidence and then I can at least see where these rumours began.

And decide on what I want to do.

 

The "summer pike suffer" thing is now being quoted as fact, I personally have not had one fish go belly up in Summer,

 

I want to hear from an expert ( Not that Ken .L and Martin are not expert anglers) why the Pike is so different from other species (except bream ) which seems to be to laid back to exhaust it'self.

 

If this is indeed AN OLD WiVES TAIL, then it will do some good for people to see it, for what it is.

Then at least the rumour won't do the rounds again, and again etc.

 

Here is too all legal methods being encouraged

 

all the best

[Guest Tim Kelly]

Danny

 

I think the anti summer piking thing comes from people being anti BAIT fishing in the summer. As we know, pike are much more aggresive and active in the summer so they presumably take and swallow bait much faster than in the winter. It links in with Peter Wallers post emploring people to look at their floats, deep hooking must do far more damage than anything else they have to contend with.

 

Good fishing

 

Tim