wobbling a sprat

[Russell Fitzpatrick]

argyll:

OK Russell you win (Too tired to argue and only 3 hours before I get up again)

doh!just noticed youposted minutes after me,3 hours sleep!? thats torture!

[argyll]

Turned out to be two hours Russell, then a drive up to the Ely area. Does anyone else leave their rig tying and tackle selection until five minutes before they though they were going to bed?

[Peter Waller]

Russell, if there is a currant or flow then smells will go with that. However, if there isn't then oily things, like fish oil, tend to float to the surface. Very useful for tracking bream shoals, especially on still but drizzly days. The slight oiliness upset the surface tension, hence it gives the fish's presence away!

[Dick Dastardly]

All getting a bit lost here realy.The thing that must be remembered is that the ideal prey to predator size ratio is exactly that ie an "ideal" Ive had big pike on small baits and small pike on big baits.No need to "match the hatch" size wise either.Fact I cant get my head around half of whats been said especially re scent trails, none of it concurs with any practical experiences Ive had.

 

FT for your wobbling just use a bait with plenty of flash,a nice tough skin to help keep it on the hook,forget about adding any additional scents as these IMO only disperse to much and hinder the pike locating your bait.A roach fits the bill for me.Size? go for 6-8" and you will hedge your bets as anything worth catching will happily take this on any water.

 

The secret ingredient? location,easy as that.It really aint rocket science!

[The Flying Tench]

Thanks everyone for your advice, specially Argyll for taking the trouble to go and measure your baits! Going back to the title of the thread, I think the balance of opinion is that sprats (3 inches?) are too small for wobbling for big pike, though of course they'll score occasionally - which still leaves me with a question about why the books talk about 'wobbling a sprat'! But thanks for the advice everyone, and successful wobbling!

[poledark]

FT, long time since I wobbled a spratt, but the ones I used many years ago were certainly a lot more than 3inches long! 3inches is whitebait size

 

Probably more like 5/6inches if my memory is good.

 

Maybe spratts are getting smaller these days.

 

One other point, if oily smells work for carp baits (and they DO ) then why should there be any doubts about them working for pike, not all the odours given off my fish baits are insoluble in water, and those that are soluble will disperse on the currents in the water.

 

And have you ever seen any sizeable bit of water that is actually "still"

 

If it is of any further help to you my standard method of spinning/wobbling was to cast along one bank...retrieve...cast about 4ft further out....retrieve...cast a further 4ft out...retrieve and continue untill you have covered the complete arc in front of you.

 

BUT DO NOT FORGET TO MAKE AT LEAST ONE FINAL CAST BACK WHERE YOU STARTED.

 

Den

[The Flying Tench]

The last sprats I bought were only 3 inches, but that's partly because they didn't have any tails, which also meant they had a lousy wobbling action!

[Dick Dastardly]

FT I wouldnt mind betting the term "Sprat" was origonally used in this context to refer to a small fish rather than the sea fish called sprat.The old time writers who wrote about sprat mounts etc certainly were.

[The Flying Tench]

Ah, that explains a lot. Thanks