Pike unhooking

[Leon Roskilly]

Rusty,

 

I think as Budgie was trying to say.

 

If you have a deep-hooked pike, you CAN remove the hook.

 

It's not so much inexperience that will have you believing that you can't get it out, as lack of confidence.

 

It might not be easy, it might be very difficult, it might require some work with wire-cutters, but you WILL be able to get those hooks out.

 

It would be tragic to have to kill a fish because you don't have the confidence to deal with it.

 

And if you don't have that confidence then, yes you should not fish for them.

 

The big problem comes from using treble hooks.

 

It is the nature of trebles that one point goes in, leaving the remaining points to either engage across the gullet, stitching it closed, or to snag on the pike's next meal, either way leading to starvation.

 

Single hooks don't have this problem, and having gained confidence using them for live-baiting for freshwater fish, I'm going to give circle hooks a try this year when I resume piking with deadbaits.

 

(Circle hooks will only engage on an 'edge', ie even if swallowed, they will usually pull back up the throat into the fishes mouth and only engage as it get's pulled around the edge of the mouth, usually in the scissors).

 

Until I have spent a season using them, I won't know from personal experience how effective they are for pike, but if you want to avoid deep-hooking with trebles, then I would suggest taking the risk of fewer hook-ups and use a single circle hook if you are not confident about dealing with with deep-hooked fish to the point where where you feel that you might need to abandon an attempt to remove trebles from a deep-hooked fish, but still want to target pike.

Edited August 31, 2008 by Leon Roskilly

[gozzer]

if you feel you have to give an opinion,

 

I didn't feel I had to give an opinion, I thought I'd answer your request for someone to show how you seemed to be unwilling to learn.

And I assure you I am not in any "click" (as you put it), just trying to show it from an unbiased viewpoint.

 

But maybe you're right, I shouldn't have bothered.

 

John.

 

PS. I'll delete my original post, it seems pointless now.

[Leon Roskilly]

The problem in giving advice on how to kill a pike 'if necessary' is that if an angler approaches his fishing with the frame of mind 'if I can't get the hooks out I can always kill it', that will lead to the completely unnecessary deaths of many pike.

 

Far better to understand that the situation where it is necessary to despatch a pike is so unusual that a reasonably competent pike angler should have no reason for recourse to such an option.

 

ps To kill a mackerel, put your thumb down it's throat, and bend it's head backwards. You will feel/hear a 'click'. The mackerel is dead. Do not try this on pike! LOL

Edited August 31, 2008 by Leon Roskilly

[Rusty]

The problem in giving advice on how to kill a pike 'if necessary' is that if an angler approaches his fishing with the frame of mind 'if I can't get the hooks out I can always kill it', that will lead to the completely unnecessary deaths of many pike.

 

I agree but would suggest that not many anglers would take that decision lightly. I bet most of us at some point have returned fish (other than pike) knowing that they're unlikely to survive.

 

Anyhow a good starting point for those wishing to learn is here http://www.pacgb.co.uk/index.html

Edited August 31, 2008 by Rusty

[Neil G]

firstly when i mentioned mackeral being badly handeled i also said that this was something that both sea and course anglers do ,again please bother to read the thread in full if you feel you have to give an opinion,and secondly i also stated that i took budgies point as being a newcomer to pike fishing i would have to take his word on wether pike mercy killings never take place ,if you guys say thats the case fair enough,the problem arised after i offered some advice witch was straight away dissmissed as rubbish and as u can see for yourself was good and sound advice ,thanks to the guy who posted the link.seems to me theres a bit of a click on this forum as there are with a lot of them and if this is how new posters are treated then people will look elsewhere ,look whats happened to the kayak forum.ps after reading some of the past pike related topics on here it seems the majority of pike anglers cant have a reasonble debate without falling out with each other so this has come as no great supprise.

 

Try asking this kind of thing on P&P forum, this place is easy going lol

[JV44]

Spent the weekend on our cruiser moored up at Goring on Thames and i took the porta bote and fished the weir pool catching 3 pike each causing me a different problem.

First Pike was taken on the fly rod and i disscovered that i hadnt pinched the barb off the big single fly hook but no worries grab the pliers pinch the barb flat and hey presto.

Second fish was taken on live bait and had a flying treble so netting was a no no ,Took my time brought her to the side of the boat took a deep breath and chinned her out,Caught this one just as a Salters Steamers party boat was leaving the lock to much cheering and whooping by the drunk patrons que hold the fish out for a trophy shot to more applause then slipped her back.

Third fish fell to a gudgeon intended for Perch and when landed she had what i would guess to be a length of 25lbish mono sticking out of her mouth attached to a swivel,Tied an extra length of mono to the swivel to enable me to pull to expose the stomach without putting fingers within pike teeth range.

Cheap looking silver spinner appeared with barbs on all the pionts,Side cutters through the gill slit and brute force on the cutters saw the thick shank of the hook fall away leaving me to pull the remaining pionts out with forceps barb end first.

Held the fish by the tail rocking her backwards and forwards through the water untill she kicked strongly away,Watched as she ingested the stomach back inside as i nursed her and afterwards went downstream in search of Chub without seeing her on the surface so i hope she made it and saw no evidence that she didnt.

Have seen loads of youngsters by the river this summer spinning as i think to youngsters to catch a pike is [1] Easy enough if you keep casting a spinner enough times in enough swims [2] Impressive bragging rites to your mates the problem arrises because many at least on my strech of the river have the whole of the summer holidays to go fishing for pike saddly without a wire trace.

I have made up loads of spinning traces which when i approach the youngsters i offer to tie the traces on for them and hopefully they will then use traces when they realise that they land more fish,maybe not but by approaching them in the right way even if one of them uses a trace afterwards its worthwhile and the cost of making up a few spinning traces is next to nowt.

The moral of the Story is dont panic as most sittuations are recoverable unhooking wise as long as you have the right tools for the job and you take your time rather than oh i cant get that out lets cut it off and just return the fish anyway.

Rusty i am not a million miles away from you i live near Newbury so if you want to meet up for a days piking PM me .

Anderoo same goes havent forgot about a day after the Perch,Busy on the cruiser untill the end of octoberish but if you have a weekend free late october/November time Pm me and we can sort out a day in the boat after the elusive big stripey from the Thames.

Sorry for going slightly off topic Guys but this is a very nice bottle of Merlot ,So nice in fact that i may have to open another one Steve.

[poledark]

Been following this with interest, and just one thing I would like assurance on i.e. when you pull a pikes stomach out of its position in the pikes body, does it become detached from the rest of the intestinal tract?

 

Is it all still connected right through to the pikes anus?

 

 

I would be best assured if someone could point me to a link showing the pikes innards.

 

You see, I have never been happy (only done it once) about this stomach pulling business.

 

Den

[ColinW]

Been following this with interest, and just one thing I would like assurance on i.e. when you pull a pikes stomach out of its position in the pikes body, does it become detached from the rest of the intestinal tract?

 

Is it all still connected right through to the pikes anus?

 

 

I would be best assured if someone could point me to a link showing the pikes innards.

 

You see, I have never been happy (only done it once) about this stomach pulling business.

 

Den

 

It's just a tube that rolls outwards quite easily as you pull slowly. Once the hooks have been removed it soon returns to normal. It's probably a natural mechanism that pike use to eject bones after digesting fish.

[Neil G]

Spent the weekend on our cruiser moored up at Goring on Thames and i took the porta bote and fished the weir pool catching 3 pike each causing me a different problem.

First Pike was taken on the fly rod and i disscovered that i hadnt pinched the barb off the big single fly hook but no worries grab the pliers pinch the barb flat and hey presto.

Second fish was taken on live bait and had a flying treble so netting was a no no ,Took my time brought her to the side of the boat took a deep breath and chinned her out,Caught this one just as a Salters Steamers party boat was leaving the lock to much cheering and whooping by the drunk patrons que hold the fish out for a trophy shot to more applause then slipped her back.

Third fish fell to a gudgeon intended for Perch and when landed she had what i would guess to be a length of 25lbish mono sticking out of her mouth attached to a swivel,Tied an extra length of mono to the swivel to enable me to pull to expose the stomach without putting fingers within pike teeth range.

Cheap looking silver spinner appeared with barbs on all the pionts,Side cutters through the gill slit and brute force on the cutters saw the thick shank of the hook fall away leaving me to pull the remaining pionts out with forceps barb end first.

Held the fish by the tail rocking her backwards and forwards through the water untill she kicked strongly away,Watched as she ingested the stomach back inside as i nursed her and afterwards went downstream in search of Chub without seeing her on the surface so i hope she made it and saw no evidence that she didnt.

Have seen loads of youngsters by the river this summer spinning as i think to youngsters to catch a pike is [1] Easy enough if you keep casting a spinner enough times in enough swims [2] Impressive bragging rites to your mates the problem arrises because many at least on my strech of the river have the whole of the summer holidays to go fishing for pike saddly without a wire trace.

I have made up loads of spinning traces which when i approach the youngsters i offer to tie the traces on for them and hopefully they will then use traces when they realise that they land more fish,maybe not but by approaching them in the right way even if one of them uses a trace afterwards its worthwhile and the cost of making up a few spinning traces is next to nowt.

The moral of the Story is dont panic as most sittuations are recoverable unhooking wise as long as you have the right tools for the job and you take your time rather than oh i cant get that out lets cut it off and just return the fish anyway.

Rusty i am not a million miles away from you i live near Newbury so if you want to meet up for a days piking PM me .

Anderoo same goes havent forgot about a day after the Perch,Busy on the cruiser untill the end of octoberish but if you have a weekend free late october/November time Pm me and we can sort out a day in the boat after the elusive big stripey from the Thames.

Sorry for going slightly off topic Guys but this is a very nice bottle of Merlot ,So nice in fact that i may have to open another one Steve.

 

Good work there

 

I have encoutered the same on free stretches where alot of kids chuck cheap spinners around with no traces on 6lb mono....have made up traces for some just to try and minnimise the damage. Would prefer it if they didn't bother in the first place though, hopefully the start of school again and some cold weather will keep them off the banks

[Anderoo]

Anderoo same goes havent forgot about a day after the Perch,Busy on the cruiser untill the end of octoberish but if you have a weekend free late october/November time Pm me and we can sort out a day in the boat after the elusive big stripey from the Thames.

Sorry for going slightly off topic Guys but this is a very nice bottle of Merlot ,So nice in fact that i may have to open another one Steve.

 

Thanks mate, I'll definitely take you up on that, very generous of you I'll return the favour of course. It's nearly perch time, maybe some time late Sept/early Oct? Depending on how it's fishing/flooding!

 

Re killing pike, I suppose it's useful to know how to cleanly dispatch a fish should the worst happen, but in 20+ years of pike fishing I've never had to kill a pike, god forbid I ever do have to. I've also never had to pull the stomach out to snip away hooks, and I really hope I never have to do that! I carry the necessary tools just in case.

 

I think pike fishing, more than any other kind of coarse fishing, is better suited to fishing with someone rather than on your own, even if you know what you're doing. There have been many, many times when I've wished I had someone else with me, if only to hold a fish still while I remove the hooks.