The pike Are On!

[Steve Burke]

We were discussing the effect of pressure on lure fishing for pike the other day, and I said I preferred high pressure.

 

Well, we've at last got some after weeks of low pressure. However, here in East Kent there's a strong and gusty NE wind, the temperature's dropped very sharply and due to fall further, and it's overcast with outbreaks of light rain.

 

Yet despite this I just knew I had to go lure fishing at Wingham.

 

I had a couple of pound plus perch, but the pike went ballistic! In fact they were slamming into the lures at my feet as if it were summer. One very fat 10lber gave me one of the best fights I've ever had from a pike.

 

Another fish of about 8lbs twice did the fastest tailwalk I've ever seen! And it's December!

 

Who said pike don't fight in winter!

 

Strangely though they still haven't gone to their winter quarters despite the weather, although I did get one there in the first few casts.

 

I eventually found them where they are every autumn - which was where the bitterly cold NE wind was pounding into the bank!

 

I'd be interested to hear how other pikers get on in this cold snap.

 

[ 06. December 2002, 08:00 PM: Message edited by: Steve Burke ]

[singy]

That sounds great fun Steve. Got me itching to get the wobbled deads or the fly rod out. There's a great little pond near me that's rammed with Jacks. Great fun on a fly rod

[greg long]

singy:

That sounds great fun Steve. Got me itching to get the wobbled deads or the fly rod out. There's a great little pond near me that's rammed with Jacks. Great fun on a fly rod

Some-one else is looking for a few frozen ones better keepit quiet!

[Dunk Fairley]

Ah ha!!!

 

Now we have an excellent scenario to demonstrate why we fish. You're a very experienced angler Steve, you say that you didn't "favour" the wind conditions. Yet you still went fishing.

 

The result was that you had an excellent, red letter day.

 

Leon said in his note on my posting about coloured water, that fish see things differently to us. You've just given a perfect example of that.

 

No matter what any of us do, the fish will always bend the rules to suit them. That's why, even after many, many years of angling, we still go out in all sorts of conditions, no matter what we think might happen. Better to try and fail, than not to have tried at all!!

 

I love it!

[Steve Burke]

Sorry, Dunk, I obviously didn't explain myself very well.

 

I DID favour the conditions. I'd been telling friends and my wife ever since this weather was forecast a week ago that I simply had to go piking now. I'd originally arranged to go yesterday but wasn't fit enough, although I was champing at the bit I can tell you! Apparently Peggy said I was in a bad mood all evening as a result!

 

It was the change to high pressure I fancied. It's just that the excepted wisdom is the wind and weather was totally against catching.

 

One of the advantages of being retired is that you can choose when you go according to the conditions. However, I agree with Dunk that we can all, no matter how experienced, get it wrong. I know I do!

 

Incidentally, as we've talked about before on the Forum, as the pike were active because of the high pressure, they were well up in the water.

 

Maybe I should have tried a topwater plug!

[Leon Roskilly]

Steve Burke:

However, here in East Kent there's a strong and gusty NE wind, the temperature's dropped very sharply and due to fall further, and it's overcast with outbreaks of light rain.

Quite a few years ago now, myself and a mate from work had booked a boat to Pike Fish Bewl.

 

Come the day, it was blowing a hoolie, with showers of light driven rain

 

From the car park I could see the waves white-horsing across the resevoir and was feeling decidly nervous about going afloat.

 

I was relieved when we were all told that the fishing had been called off.

 

Next stop was the Medway at Teston, running fast and coloured. I rather fancied it, but my younger companion (who had never read Mr Crabtree) voted that we give Johnson's a try.

 

So we set up in the narrow strip between the main lake and the watersport lake, the wind coming in strong gusts from the watersport lake.

 

We were protected by some low bushes, but the waves from the watersport lake were crashing against the bank behind us and the spray was being wind-driven over the bushes.

 

We did OK, landing a number of pike to around 15lbs, and a couple of pikers fishing a couple of swims down were also catching.

 

IME it's when a front is approaching, and the pressure falling rapidly, as the cloud and rain moves in, that the pike go off feed.

 

But once the front has passed, even though the wind is still strong and the weather showery, and pressure is still very low, but rising again, the pike start to feed

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Steve Burke]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leon Roskilly:

IME it's when a front is approaching, and the pressure falling rapidly, as the cloud and rain moves in, that the pike go off feed.

 

But once the front has passed, even though the wind is still strong and the weather showery, and pressure is still very low, but rising again, the pike start to feed

 

Tight Lines - leon[/QB]

---

I agree with this, which is why the change to high pressure is often so good for piking - at least with lures.

 

Interestingly, I find the opposite with perch, which is very helpful to a predator angler as I can choose which species to pursue accordingly!

 

With perch I find that light intensity is the prime factor in determining how well and where they'll feed, but of course not the only one. And after a cold front has gone through the sky usually clears, the humidity drops and the light becomes bright and harsh. This perch certainly don't like.

 

In the States many anglers really hate post cold front conditions for bass, which of course are related to perch. These are just the conditions that Leon and I find turn on our pike!

 

Do pike react the same way in the States? From what I've read in US books cold fronts don't put the pike down, at least to the same extent as bass. But do they turn them on?

 

[ 07. December 2002, 12:02 AM: Message edited by: Steve Burke ]

[poledark]

Leon and Steve, I dont want to put a damper on this , but how do you know the pike were not feeding just as well a week before or a week later? They may have been feeding even better the day before!!

 

:confused:

 

Den

[Steve Burke]

They probably were feeding very well the day before as the pressure began to rise, but as I said earlier I couldn't make it then.

 

However piking, at least with lures, has been poor recently, which friends on other local waters have confirmed.

 

This is not an isolated incidence - which is why I was so keen to get to Wingham!

 

It's just a question of experience. Thankfully though we're not always right and there's always more to learn - which makes fishing so interesting!

 

There are so many variables to take into account, but in this case I'd suggest that the rise in pressure after being low for so long was the most important factor. Of course it may not be the pressure rise in itself that did the trick but the effect it had on other weather conditions, such as the drop in temperature.

 

[ 07. December 2002, 08:35 AM: Message edited by: Steve Burke ]

[Leon Roskilly]

poledark:

Leon and Steve, I dont want to put a damper on this , but how do you know the pike were not feeding just as well a week before or a week later? They may have been feeding even better the day before!!

 

:confused:

 

Den

I tend to have to fish when I can, sometimes I've arranged to fish with someone else, or I might be fishing at a fish-in where I have to put up with the weather God sends.

 

Over time a pattern emerges.

 

Of course sometimes one develops a belief that is self-fulfilling ie you tend not to fish when conditions don't seem to be good, or you are less confident, so you put in less effort and pack up early.

 

But generally I do find that increasing lowereing cloud, a strengthening and backing wind with rain expected in a few hours, is usually the kiss of death, whereas once the front itself has passed, the chance of catching a pike increases.

 

I especially like early season, post cold-front conditions, with towering white clouds, heavy showers, and blustery winds whipping the bushes about. But as I've mentioned before, I don't expect takes when the rain is actually hammering down.

 

In unsettled conditions, with weather fronts coming through about once in every 24 hours, then yes, there will be good and bad periods in the days both before and after the day I fish.

 

More contentious is what happens during 'settled' conditions when an atmospheric high lies down across the country and sends depressions scuttling around to the north.

 

Although most will tell you that such high-pressure brings the pike onto feed, I've suffered blanks and non-blanks equally in such classic conditions. Very little wind, tending to be foggy, especially early and late, probably lasting for several days.

 

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/authors/leon15.htm

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 07. December 2002, 10:48 AM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]