whats the deepest uv had contact with a pike?

[AndyY]

Thanks again for the clearly explained info this is invaluable at the moment. Pike fishing lazy aye right then amazing the amount of folk who believe this though

think i'm about sorted with the questions for a bit but if anythin crops up i will be sure to ask thanks again

[noodle996]

Hi thanks for the replies think for the deeper water I'm goin to try some trollin with one of they dipsydivers just need find a rod to suit now?????Budgie did you not have much success trolling 30ft as this was my next approach 30,35,40,45 n hopefully 50 just to cover the ranges we cant get baits to as we can only really anchor in 30ft water max. Just remember also Ive had pike in 35ft of water off the bottom at lomond totaly gone from my memory there. Has anyone any experience with a dipsydiver n do u think it would take a magdawg down.(should this be another thread?)

 

Thanks again for the quick responses we only got 4 months a cold weather left i need to learn fast.

 

noodle 90 ft now that scary u mustve had about 300ft of rope were u told the pike were there or did u just take a chance just it seems a lotta effort just to be takin a chance how long did u fish it was it 1 fish for a long time spent i.e more than a day session. or did u only fish it once and catch that fish. have u fished they depths again with any results?

 

 

didnt have any rope out i was fishing from the bank, ill gernerally fish four rods so i try and peg them at depths to find the right one untill i get some action rough guide id try 10-15ft 25-30 foot and then deeper with the 3rd rod depending on the depth in front of me the 4th goes as deep as i can get it

 

had a fair few from the 50-60 ft range but then ive had them a couple of feet down over 130 feet of water

i only fish deep once winter has set in as doing that in the summer has been useless (once i learned about turnover m=it made more sense)

 

and thinking about it id work on those depths as rough depths as they were measured with a marker float so may be out by a fair few feet, hopefully over the next few weeks ill get the boat over it and find the deppth it definatly is

Edited December 2, 2008 by noodle996

[AndyY]

Hi I dont think u would be to far off wi a marker float just depends the actual angle it comes up to the surface at. I know what u mean though it niggles at yer head eh not knowin. from what ive been reading 30-60ft seems a good area to cover there is a few fish caught deeper but i think the most are to 60ft.

 

thanks very much for the repies on this and the other threads i think im about ready for some deepwater trollin bring on january.

 

Also as no-one seems to have tried deep trwlin dawgs if it work with the dipsy i will let u know if it dont i will try wi just adding a big lead. why dont they make a trollin dawg just need one wi a big heavy head but still soft on the outside.

 

cheers.

Edited December 3, 2008 by AndyY

[Andy Macfarlane]

A trolling weight would be OK and that wouldn't roll the dawg over I don't imagine. You could try one of my homemade buoyant leger stems with a few oz of lead hanging off the bottom or maybe you could slit the dawg of choice open, add some weight and then weld the slit. Adding weight to the dawg might be harder right enough. It could prove difficult keeping the lure evenly keeled.

I'd give the leger stems a bash...if they work, great, if they don't, no harm done. They're cheap enough to experiment with Andy.

[Steve Burke]

I've done an awful lot of trolling lures over the years and had a sizeable number of both pike and perch down to 45 feet. However all these fish have been caught "flatlining" with no downrigger or Dipsy Diver. The following comments are therefore based on my experiences flatlining. Having said that, if you've got enough space and you're fishing for suspended fish or along a clean bottom I've little doubt that a downrigger is the way to go.

 

As always with lure fishing one of the keys is depth control. For flatlining I much prefer floating divers as these work to a set maximum depth. Contrast this with a sinking lure, for instance the traditional spoon, that's sinks as soon as you slow down or even turn the boat.

 

There are a lot of lures that will troll down to 25 feet, and friends and I have done very well with both perch and pike with 5 inch Flatfishes that can be worked down to this depth on a long line without additional weight. At greater depths there's less choice of lure but a lot more than when we first started! One I can recommend is the Mann's 30+ that I've got down to and caught on at 45 feet.

 

For the benefit of the less experienced two of the main parameters in determining how deep a given floating diver will work without a downrigger etc are the line diameter and also its thickness. The thinner the line and the more line you have out the deeper such a lure will fish. However no matter how much line you have out there's a maximum depth that a given lure will reach.

 

In the early years especially I always shared a boat and we used one rod each, with the angler controlling the motor at the back fishing the left hand side, and the angler at the front fishing the right hand side. If the angler on the motor is left-handed the reverse will apply.

 

We both preferred long rods (9 to 10 feet) as this gave us maximum coverage to the sides of the boat. It's also worth mentioning that the Americans prefer soft action rods when using a downrigger, but as I said I can't speak from experience here.

 

In each case we held our rods and dealt with takes exactly as we would when casting.

 

Later I fished more on my own, and often I'd fish 2 rods, one in an outrigger type of rod rest. However it was apparent I caught more fish on the rod I was holding. The two main reasons were that I could feel what was happening with the hand-held rod, plus the hook-up ratio was better as by no means all the fish hooked themselves, even gunning the motor.

 

Two or more rods of course gives you more options, particularly enabling you to fish different depths simultaneously. However it's important to fish lures that work at similar speeds.

 

Having said that there are advantages in just one rod. Quite apart from avoiding the occasional tangle especially when playing a fish, it does mean that you can execute really tight turns. This results in a change of speed that can really turn fish on. It also means that you can more accurately fish along a drop-off etc.

 

We used fixed spool reels, but these days I'd use a multiplier with a line counter so that I'd know how much line is out and thus have even better depth control. If you haven't got a line counter Shakespeare do (or did) one that clips onto the rod.

 

Of course the fish aren't always this deep, but having the lures and the equipment does at least enable you to efficiently fish at this sort of depth.

 

There's also a lot more to trolling than many believe!

Edited December 4, 2008 by Steve Burke