Lures?

[Peter Waller]

Don't know, Budgie. I just have this gut feeling that I catch more when the line is black rather than near white! Theoretically a light colour should be best, but the evidence seems to suggest otherwise.

[Andy Macfarlane]

Shads are my favourite deep-water piking lures. In winter, small shads and swimbaits around the 4" mark are my first line of attack but they'll work at other times of the year, when the pike are lying up, staying low, avoiding bright sunshine or basically just having a snooze. In the warmer months, I'll use larger swimbaits to reflect their larger diet intake. Fishing them is much the same though. Here are 5 ways to get you started. I'm working on what I believe to be a completely new lure fishing method but that's for another time. I'm going piking in the morning, instead of just talking about it!!...LOL!

 

1: The first way I fish them is to simply cast them out and let the hit the bottom, counting down as I go. Take a second or two off your count and you'll be fishing close to the bottom. Simply wind your bait in, varying your speed as you go, adding a little dart, hang or pause but basically, it's a straight retrieve. Dead easy.

 

2: If that doesn't work, I'll get my lure down same as before but this time, I want to fish the lure sink and draw style. Allowing the bait to rise and fall in the water column, gives you a good chance of attracting the attentions of a fish, no matter what depth they're sitting at, so try to make that lure seen at all depths and remember to throw those odd little moves into the retrieve.

 

3: If I'm absolutely sure the fish are hard on the bottom, I'll take the belly treble off altogether and gang the treble onto the back single or/and use a stinger arrangement. This allows me to put my bait right on the bottom without too much fear of finding a snag. Once you've cast out, hold the rod up high, tighten up and simply give your reel handle a crank, two cranks or 3 cranks and let it hit the bottom again. Keep a tight line all the time, as pike will often flare their gills and literally inhale your lure right off the bottom while it's motionless. You can allow your bait to pause for a few seconds. Repeat the cranking action again and basically what you're trying to do is hop your bait along the bottom, kicking up muck, detritus and hopefully create a little sound too.

 

4: If you're drifting over deep water, you can jig swimbaits along the bottom, using the drift of the boat to provide the lure's forward motion. All you're doing is giving the lure it's up and down motion. This is probably the laziest action but it can be very effective.

 

5: By taking the weight or jig-head off your bait, you can fish shads and similar lures in the same way as wobbled baits. The only weight is the lure itself. What you're trying to do this time, is mimic the action of an injured fish, perhaps with swim-bladder problems. A lot of folk go to a lot of bother trying to get unweighted shads to keep an even keel but I think that's defeating the point. Fish with buoyancy problems can't keep an even keel. That's why they're on the pike's menu. Cast the lure, let it sink to the desired depth, again keeping a tight line and then start to add little glimmers of 'life'. You've seen the last throws of life, when a fish is really struggling. That's exactly what you want. Be vigilant when doing this as pike will often watch injured prey, just waiting for the perfect moment to launch their attack. Very often it'll come right under your feet.

[Moodyboy]

Andy

 

Thank you very much, really helpful

[Andy_1984]

heard someone mention toby's ?

 

ive had a flot of success with this little white toby with holographic pattern.

 

jerked from side to side making it dart left to right you can see why a fish might have a go at it and indeed they did, 2 in the space of 10 seconds

 

first one dived out of some weed 2ft from the bank took 2 swipes at it then buggered off. cast it out again to where i think the pike went to and hooked in to a totaly different pike

 

also caught tons up the canal with this.

[Guerilla]

Best to give an idea about the rod and reel that you have before asking about lures. There's no point in having people point you in the direction of some great jerkbaits if you have an ultrlight outfit and vice versa.

The other obvious thing to say is that winter is a bad time to start off with lure fishing. It can be very hard work and it's very easy to give the whole idea up as a bad job.

Sorry to jump on this thread so late in the conversation, but being a complete novice Pike angler, I was under the impression that Spinning in Winter was a good method? Is it generally the case that Pike Spinning is more productive in Summer, and if so, does anyone know why?

If you have a balanced outfit, I'd expect that rod to be set up with a 4000 size reel and either 12lb mono...

Excellent, at least I know my setup is balanced!

 

Thank you for all the advice. It is to read such informative tips such as this that I enjoy reading this forum.

 

Oh, and just to continue the discussion, I fish a water similar in description to the OP, MoodyBoy, but I know that the river also contains good-sized Chub. Anyone have any experience of catching Chub on lures? Is there a universal lure that could catch Pike, Perch and Chub or should concentrate on targetting my intended species?

[Newt]

Winter fishing is usually for fish that are somewhat inactive. They cannot afford to expend as much energy catching a meal as the meal will bring them. Fish that do that don't live very long.

 

Colder weather and a lure you can work slowly is usually your best option.

 

As far as lure selection, on the right day pretty much any lure might catch pretty much any species. I've had fish attack a lure that was as large as the fish. That said, you are normally best off using a lure designed for the species you are targeting and letting the occasional catch of something else be a pleasant surprise.

[Andy Macfarlane]

Which Toby is it Andy? A salmon angler might want an 18g silver toby but what does a piker want? What does it say on the back?