My Way with Pike

The first big pike I was lucky enough to catch was a fish of 23lb 10oz, inthose days(early to mid 70’s) I was lucky enough to fish a marina on theSevern above Worcester that had “illegally” been cut from the main river. Theland owner was eventually made to fill most of it back in but I managed acouple of years of piking bliss, although I only ever had the one twentyfrom there I did have plenty of fish. After all those easy pike I felt I wasready to take on anywhere! but didn’t I come down to earth with a bump! itwas to be a long time until I enjoyed that standard of piking again.

I have the greatest of respect for any angler who regularly catches big pike.Yes, they can at times be surprisingly easy to catch but the preparation thatgoes into their capture can be very time consuming and although gear andbait can be purchased easier now than twenty or even ten years ago a lot ofplanning is still needed to enjoy success.

During my serious piking years I was always on the look out for ‘new waters’ and during the mid to late 70’s and early 80’s, when it was still possible to find waters that were only lightly or not pike fished, I spent many hours in search of the pikingpromised land. The only problem was that the midlands had a very active group ofpike anglers and very often I was not the only one looking at or fishing suchwaters. Very often I was fishing a water when one or more of the othersturned up or vice-versa! Anglers like Des Taylor, Rich Foster, Mick Brown,the late John Sidley are just a few who were on the ball as far as pikefishing in the midlands and beyond was concerned and our paths often met. Ithink we all realised that the competition was hot and we were always ofcourse 100% honest with each other about our captures – not!

When a new water was found one of the biggest problems was how to evaluatethe pike potential. Even on waters I knew well it was possible to have halfa dozen trips and catch little or just small fish before the big fish turnedup. It was all too easy to write a water off and be tempted to fish pastures newand miss out on the waters true potential. In fact I remember abandoning onelocal water believing it only contained smallish fish when a couple of thelads from the old Worcs specimen group latched onto a nice twenty, and inthose days I had not had enough twenties to pass them by! The moral is togive a water time and stick at it for a while.

I have had many debates on the subject of livebait versus deadbait and whatmethod is the best for big pike. Personally I feel no need to justify theuse of livebaits and if I had to choose a bucket of lives or even thefreshest of deadbaits I would always – but always – choose the lives. It willcome as no surprise then when I say that most of my big pike have come tolivebait. Yes, I have caught a lot of small fish on them, and I’ve caught alot of small fish on deads. But I have, overall, caught far more pike of allsizes on livebait. That said, there are times when I don’t mind using deadsand I will come back to that later.

If I had to choose my overall favourite method of piking I would, without ashadow of doubt, choose a free-roaming livebait fished on a sliding float sothat I can explore any depth. Yes, the paternostered livebait can be a deadlyset up and I have caught lots of pike using it, but in the right situation afree-roamer can, in my opinion, outfish most methods.

A couple of years ago I was roach fishing on the Wye (no I wasn’t livebait fishing!) when, as often happens, the pike moved in. Now I always take a pike rod on these trips and I dropped a paternostered bait at the tail of the swim. Three hours later,despite having half a dozen roach taken as I played them I had failed tocatch a pike. I decided to trot the livebait through the swim and first trotthrough a fantastic looking Wye twenty came my way; she obviously didn’tlike something about the way the paternostered bait was behaving! When usinga free-roaming bait I would like to state the importance of a floating linebetween float and rod, let it sink even when fishing deep, and it’s sod’s lawthe pike will take a mouthful of mainline and you will get a bite-off,sooner rather than later.

I said earlier that there were times when I didn’t mind using deadbaits, butthese are on good pike waters where I do not have a choice because of rules!For sink and draw when searching out hotspots (or I’ve run out of livies!)and at the back end of the old season when fishing still waters when thefemales seem to be more in a scavenger mode. At least on the waters I havefished, the most successful baits for me in this situation have been eitherroach, sardine, or smelt in an order defined by the pike on the day! But itcan be well worth sitting behind a couple (or three!) deadbaits at this timeof year.

Although I caught a lot of those fish from the Severn I talked about earlieron spinners, I have never done a great deal with lures it has never done alot for me. But that said, a mate and myself had a few big fish on spoons. No,not expensive shop-bought ones but plain common or garden eating utensils!It was comical really because we were both searching out junk shops andbuying up the spoons, the bigger the better, and we were both going in andbeing told someone came in yesterday and had bought them all. We knew theothers had beat us to it! All we did with them was cut of the handles anddrill them to take hooks and swivel, a little red wool to the hooks and thatwas it! But we had some great days boat fishing with them.

I still pike fish but not on the scale that I used to. The older I get themore I want to do and it is now just a part of my winter campaign not thecampaign.

But as I said earlier I know the work load that can go into consistently catching big pike and I will always respect that.