First Pike

[merlino bill]

oi oi im going on my first pike trip on tuesday 29 november on bolom lake now is there anybody from the north-east that can give me some advice on luers, dead bait, spinners, or what im going with my son & it's his first time as well. We did a recce on friday & some old fella said it's stuffed with jack's from 2-6LB but there are some big females that dont come out verry often,which is fine by us (hopefully stars small) but we have everything in place just in case.

 

has anyone fished this lake or give us some tip's.

by the way we saw plenty of plug's & ledgers, & floats in trees & bushes. so first thing is whatch how we cast.

 

[Brian Carragher]

If the fish in Bolam are a touch on the small side then adjust your terminal tackle accordingly. Use size 8 trebles on your snap tackle and if you make your own , adjust the rig so your two hooks are 2 to 3 inch's apart. If they are too far apart and the size of fish is small there is a great risk of missing fish when you lean into them when you get a run, don't strike when you get a run, just wind down until theres no more slack line and you feel some tension in the line. Keep winding and at the same time lean the rod away from the direction of the run until you have maximum tension on the line, that should be more than enough to set the hooks without pulling the fish's head off or of breaking your line on a strike on a runing fish.

 

Try a variety of different baits, some roach,bream,lamprey, mackeral and sardine and you will have enough of a variety to at least get a couple of runs. Pop some up off the bottom and have some hard on the bottom and see whats favoured on the day. Try float paternostering some baits so that they are well up in the water for those patrolling fish ,the basics of which you'll find on www.pacgb.com and look under "trace and rig basics". Use alarms if you have them if not cheap basic alarms will do and get some drop off indicators for the rear and you should be well armed. I use the Fox drop offs as I think they're the best.

 

Look around the water for features as even at this time of year pike are always near weed beds or decaying reeds, see if there is any activity from the bait fish and have a good look at the water to see if there any vantage points to help you identify drop offs or ledges in the water. Look for real darker bits of water next to lighter bits if you can.

 

Failing that try plumbing the depth before you fish with a two ounce lead. Cast out and feather the line so that when the lead hits the water there is no slack. Count down until the line goes slack and the rod tip bounces back off tension, the bigger number you count to the deeper the water ,if you can find a big difference in depth then thats the ledge where I would put a bait.

 

Good luck and let us know how you get on

[Leon Roskilly]

Have a look at:

 

Beginning Lure Fishing

 

Pike - The Basics

 

Tight Lines - leon

[geffaz]

smelt is a great all rounder mate! top dead bait as for some reson they like that weird cucumbery smell! also a top bait for wobbling (my fav method) as they give loads of action and they will take cast arfter cast intact!

they never seem to fail me! get some in the freezer!

 

well that was my 2ps worth anyway lol

[Dave Horton]

The Pike Basics bit is good advice as is a Smelt for bait particularly if you're gona try wobbling a bait. Lamprey takes some beating for static fishing though. Good luck!

[merlino bill]

i would just like to thank you ALL for your input, between yourself's & the tackle shop owner it look's like we have coverd all base's,with plenty of bait & end tackle. so we can't wait to put all this info into practice so as they say whatch this space. any fish we do catch will be photgraped, weighed, & verry carefully put back.

 

so what we see YOU will see once again many thank's.