mice

[old novice - jeff]

first off a bit of background - the wife breeds snakes which eat nice, they range from pinkies to full grown.

the nice are bought frozen and warmed up to feed to the snakes, if the snakes dont eat them they have to go in the bin.

we also have frozen chicks.

 

my lad likes pike fishing with dead baits (cannot use lives).

 

could he use the left overs to fish with ? i dont like to put them in the bin

has anybody used them before ?

[Newt]

Pike in the States are known to take swimming mice & rats and lures to mimic them catch well at times.

 

I would imagine the UK pike are pretty much the same so give it a try. Probably need to nick the body several places to make sure some scent is in the water.

 

I have this vision of stringing heads on a hair as if they were boilies but that is probably just me.

[Houseplant]

first off a bit of background - the wife breeds snakes which eat nice

 

do they taste like chicken?

 

sorry, couldn't resist that!

 

guess it could work, i remember reading somewhere that mice are used as bait for catfish. personally, i wouldn't fancy it. imagine the state of the things after a few hours in the water. besides, although i don't doubt for a minute that pike eat mice, i'd try and provide them with their more commonly targeted prey, fish.

 

know what you mean about wastage though. how about buying live mice, i'm sure the snakes would prefer them too.

[old novice - jeff]

do they taste like chicken?

 

sorry, couldn't resist that!

 

guess it could work, i remember reading somewhere that mice are used as bait for catfish. personally, i wouldn't fancy it. imagine the state of the things after a few hours in the water. besides, although i don't doubt for a minute that pike eat mice, i'd try and provide them with their more commonly targeted prey, fish.

 

know what you mean about wastage though. how about buying live mice, i'm sure the snakes would prefer them too.

 

if we ever get a big one die i will cook it and invite you round for tea, we could have corn snake and mouse kebab's

 

on a more serious point i was thinking about making up some mouse kebabs like the fish pike kebabs the tackle shops are selling.

 

feeding live nice is a bit of a grey area in law, you are only aloud to feed lives to snakes that will not eat deads, it is not legal to feed lives to snakes that will eat deads, also a live cornered mouse can do a lot of damage to a snake.

[Houseplant]

well, you learn something everyday

[Dick Dastardly]

Used them for Catfish and caught...........but that aint no reccomendation as they will eat anything! They use rats and mice live on Jug lines for Alligator Gar as well in the US.Not my thing but they go into quite a bit of detail about hooking them in the base of the tail so they stay alive and work better.......I live bait but even I have my limits!

[old novice - jeff]

Used them for Catfish and caught...........but that aint no reccomendation as they will eat anything! They use rats and mice live on Jug lines for Alligator Gar as well in the US.Not my thing but they go into quite a bit of detail about hooking them in the base of the tail so they stay alive and work better.......I live bait but even I have my limits!

 

dont think i could bring myself to hook a live one.

[ColinW]

dont think i could bring myself to hook a live one.

 

Big ragworm are bad enough, never mind trying to hook a live rat!

[Andy Macfarlane]

Pike will eat just about anything and they have been caught on all sorts of nonsense but you really aren't treading new territory here. Plenty of folk have tried 'exotic' baits with mixed results but at the end of the day they all go back to what pike eat most of the time and that's fish. Fish aren't expensive and they're readily available so why bother using a bait that may or may not bring satisfying results?

If you reckon throwing pinkies out is a waste, chop them up and add them to a prebait/freebie mix. It's all extra blood/meat at the end of the day. I guess if the pinkies were added to a prebait mix and introduced to a swim often enough, the pike might 'tune' into them eventually and then they 'may' produce results as a hookbait but in all honesty, I would much rather have fish on my hook and fish/oil/meal for prebait.

[Guest tigger]

You could just put them on the bird table and watch the Maggies etc fight for them.