Anglers Blues

[wearyone]

With the shortening days I find it better for short late afternoon/evening chubbing sessions. An hour or so before dusk and fishing two hours into dark on the local river is the ideal compromise, and your back home in time for the soaps

[fishy_con]

i must admit, the idea of keeping mobile as the colder weather draws in sounds like a great idea, and the shorter but more frequent sessions sounds like yet another bonus! i think i will take a look at spinning tackle this weekend and have a chat to the guy at my LTS. Ive always liked the idea of lure fishing for the predators but never being shown how to work with lures and how to remove trebles properly i thought i should avoid it in case i end up damaging fish.

[Neil G]

Lures are good if your short on time...the kit required is far less cumbersome than dead/live baiting etc.

 

TBH if I only have a morning to spare I usually go for the lures, especially if I'm fishing the river as I can move and cover a lot of water.

[Errrm]

I've done a bit of dead bating for Pike but I have never really had any success lure fishing for them. I've been fishing on the Dove alot recently and next summer would love to fish for the trout, grayling, perch, pike and chub using spinners and lures but I have no idea how to retrieve each of them and how they are supposed to work. How did everyone here learn this? Was it just a case of trial and error or did someone more experienced show you or did you find a good article which explained this?

 

Errrm

[RPM]

Treble hooks. This is the only bit I dislike about lure fishing (apart from the expense of replacing lures when you snag them!)

 

Some lure fisherman, myself included, try to reduce the number of hooks on their lures. If possible I'll exchange trebles for doubles and sometimes get rid of one set of trebles if a lure has two sets. It probably goes without saying that you should crush the barbs.

 

I've found that since I've started using 50/65lb Power Pro braid (moss green) and 50lb home-made single strand titanium leaders I've hardly lost any lures.

 

So, that's both downsides sorted!

 

MC

 

PS. My kit sits permanently in the boot of my car or on my bicycle cross bar. My rod is always made up, only requiring I join the two sections. This enables me to stop for even just ten minutes on the way home from work and have a few casts. And it is amazing how much peace of mind even only ten minutes standing on the edge of a river brings... completely regardless of whether I catch anything or not.

 

I think MC seems to have it sorted here and cant agree more with the barb crushing and reducing the hooks on a lure. I try and cut two off and have had no problems at all and easy to onhook, particularly if you are inexperienced. Ethics over, last year was the first year I started 'light weighting' with spinner and such. Great for a couple of hours and had some great perch and pike to 9lbs on my local river.

[Peter M]

........... It probably goes without saying that you should crush the barbs.

this is a really good tip makes unhooking sooo much eaiser.

[fishy_con]

im liking the idea of this more and more, especially with the removal of the trebels. I know i'm going to need a new rod for lures/spinners but could i use the reel from either my float/carp/quivertip rod?

[Peter M]

i use my general purpose shimano stradic with 10 pound line (i have tried braid and don't really like it but lots of others like it)

[bingo]

You shouldn't really go below 15lb breaking strain mono when after pike. You don't need to be subtle. What you need to ensure is that you get the pike in without it snapping the line and swimming around with a wire trace before probably dying.. If using braid you can go heavier. Most use 50lb breaking strain but 80lb is not uncommon with big heavy lures. There's no need to go below 30lb breaking strain braid. The braid can be heavy because it is under a lot of use all day. Plus it helps to retrieve the lures from snags/weed etc.

 

Make sure you know what you're doing and that you have the appropriate equipment. Pike are fragile and should not viewed as a 'last resort' if you don't know what you're doing. They need to be respected. A small pike can seem scary but it's vital they are treated correctly in order to avoid damage to it and the captor.

 

Please take a look at this video re: handling.

 

Youtube Video ->

 

The Pike Anglers Club of Great Britain have some great tips and advice on their website:

 

Pike Fishing Tips

 

Not criticising. All advice given is with the pike's best interests in mind.

[Neil G]

I have to say how good braid is for lure fishing....I don't think I could go back to using mono now for that stayle of fishing.

 

Got to be careful of wind knots though....once you get them in braid it's difficult to sort it out.