Big pike are not hard to catch

[Derek Gibson]

You're right Greg, it is an enormous advantage to make your own lures. So much so that the only lures I buy nowadays are plastics. Being able to decide on hook position is another great asset, as you will see from the ones I send over for you. The yanks would arm a lure like those with up to four hooks no doubt. I have flirted with the one hook on certain lures, but abandoned the idea after several trials. I am now at ease with my two hook arrangement, from every standpoint both from the pikes welfare and my own.

Greg have you tried the Replicants yet, from the boat you can use them straight out of the packet, without the concerns the bank angler may encounter. They are a good lure but I have to doctor them before I dare risk them down on the Trent, at a tenner a time it's far too risky.

 

[Greg Matthews]

derek.when you say doctor the replicants what does this entail.do you file down the barbs on trebles or just flatten the barb on lures.do you use twin blade spinner baits.

 

[Andrew Macfarlane]

Talking of lures with longevity throughout the season, I'm a big fan of the 60g Salmo Floating Slider (Shiner) and the Ace Sweet Shad 66 (Yellow Sunburst). Both lures have delivered me fish consistently.

 

[Derek Gibson]

Greg, doctoring the replicants involves opening the throat of the lure with a craft knife to expose the lead. Then cutting out a section of the lead, this means of course you lose the anchor point for the belly treble. Weld the throat closed, job done,unfortunately this only leaves the back single . That in itself never worried me unduly, but I have to admit the lures don't last long after a few fish, it's not ideal, but it has served me well. I always nip the barbs on my lures but never flatten them.

Spinnerbaits----- Yes much of the time I use twin blades, but always with Colorado/Indiana blades for the low frequency sound. And always with single hook stingers with offset points, tip them with a trailer grub (try the scented ones) and you have one killer lure. I know I bang on about them but they really are a dynamite lure.

Regards Derek.

 

[Nathan]

Derek thanks for the reply - heres a picture of the lakes i was talking about. Both are approx 4-5ft deep although there are a couple of spots that are deeper/shallower as I found out when I took a marker float down last winter.

The islands usually produce a few fish & i know a 14lber was taken from between the 2 islands on the bigger lake. There's actually a big pipe which connects the two lakes & i know the carp use it to travel between the lakes, not sure about the pike though.

 

[Derek Gibson]

Nathan, from what I can see I think I would tend to concentrate my efforts from the pipe down to what I presume to be a wooded area bottom right of picture, and around to the back of the larger of the two islands.

The top of the picture shows an area I would ''definately'' target for the latter months of the season, for obvious reasons!

Lures, I would be most surprised if the resident pike don't respond to a well presented spinnerbait, or a well fished top water lure. How far from the bank are the islands as viewed on picture from the right hand bank?

I cannot believe that would not be a holding area, as you say. Whether the pike transition in and out is irrelevent, you must try to intercept their route.

Have you access on the bank through that wooded section Nathan?----- Tell me, what's the distance between the pipe and around the wooded erea to the back of bottom island as we view it?----- adjacent weed beds?---- marginal shelf? We are getting there mate.

 

[Nathan]

Derek,

I have just PM'd you with details on how to find the lake on google maps. That should help you to work out distances. The small insland is about 30yrds from the bank. Not sure about the distances on the larger lake.

There is a marginal shelf about a rod length out altho on the bigger lake the top section is a nice shallow bay. All of my fish so far have come from around the island on the small lakes but the margins can also be quite productive. There are no real weedbeds in either lake - there are2 patches of onion weed one above & the other just below the island on the smaller lake.

As i said rubber lures have worked for me, diving plugs & spoons have so far not produced any bites for me.

The lakes can be accessed from all around - it was originally built by a farmeras a trout fishery but it never got off the ground & so they let people fish it for free as long as they dont create too much mess. And yet you still find people leaving litter - Grrr!! /forum/smilies/angry_smiley.gif

 

[Derek Gibson]

Nathan, I still feel the best plan of action would be to work the areas around the marginal shelf from behind the island down to the wooded section. If diving plugs and spoons aren't working, stick with your plastics, but if you haven't already done so I would put a lot of faith in slow sinkers. And for heavens sake don't ignore surface lures, there are some ''crackers'' readily available these days.

Best of luck mate.

 

[Greg Matthews]

derek.in reply to nathans thread you said that there are some really good surface lures.what would you recomend.do you use surface lures all year round.

 

[Derek Gibson]

Greg, there are some cracking lures available these days, but one of the oldest is still one of the best. I'm talking here of the Jitterbug, I rate it right up there with the cream of topwaters. Unlike buzz baits this one can take the hammer from pike and keep on working,whereas some of the prop lures can get so bent out of shape much time is lost tinkering to get them working again.

Another would be the Mouldys Hawg Wobbler, it's not unlike a Pikie but stays on top and makes a lovely clacking sound on the retrieve, it's excellent. And yes I have taken big pike on both lures nearly up to Christmas time given a mild spell. But usually not as effective once you get past October, but given a mild preiod I'll be chucking em out. How did you go with the pipe lagging mate? and have you trimmed those butts yet.

 

[Greg Matthews]

derek.shortened the butt of the fox rod by about 8 inches works a treat.i have one jitterbug not mad about two side trebles but great lures.will go to diy place tomorrow to get pipe lagging.have decided to stick with a few lures for river /canal/small lakes.heres my selection

8 inch sozy roach

fluro orange/yellow 2oz spinnerbaits.

10 inch hawg dancer perch pattern.

2 squillery burts 8 inch. roach/perch patterns.

8 inch smitty glide hot orange.

10 inch suick thriller yellow/perch pattern.

salmo 10 inch turbo jack firetiger pattern.

i think that will cover most of the situtions i will come across.i think sinking baits are not the way to go when shore fishing.i think you spend so much time trying to avoid weed catching the lure.you end up not fishing the lure right. so floating/or slow sinking is the way foward for me.must say taughts of this style of fishing really brings the buzz back.really looking foward to the weekend.

 

[Derek Gibson]

The Jitterbug you have Greg is the Musky version, typical yank logic. I'm with you all the way with your lure choice and sizes, with one exception, the ''Salmo'', I have a few but can't make em work for me (I must be crap). Greg you must get yourself a couple of Castaics, the big slow sinking ones, they are the dogs whatsits mate - the ''Rainbow Trout'', and ''Baby Bass'' patterns are killers where ever I've used them. One thing I do with mine is clip the single hook off, and just leave the belly treble, much easier to deal with hook removal and no detriment to hooking ratios. They do look a bit of a lump in the hand, and hung off the rod end, but in the water, ''dynamite''. I've had twenty three twenties up to 27-12 during the last few years on them, can't recommend them high enough.

 

[Philip]

Excellent thread..well done to all who have posted...great for people like me whowant to improve theirlure fishing..

Icertainly agree on thelure sizeI had the opportunity to fish for some very visual fish in an alpine reservoir earlier this year…high position, gin clear water, still and calm,bright sun etc…it became apparent very quickly that the smaller lures were simply not creating enough water disturbance to be noticed but change to a biggun and they started to follow.

how about something more on retrieves maybe ?

 

[Derek Gibson]

Thank's Phillip, one of the problems with having done this lure fishing lark for such a long time is that certain facets you tend to overlook. It's a bit like casting, in my own case I tended initially to follow the example of styles set down by a couple of the American Tournament Champions. Further down the road it simply evolved into my own way ,best described in the words of friends as ''anyway it takes'', which means I suppose that there is no rigid technique once you are at ease with the gear. And I believe that lure retrieval follows the same path. Thirty years ago a much respected American lure angler told me ''there is no lure that was ever made that was designed to be just cast out and retrieved without a little thought''. Take the floating diver, most would simply cast out and wind back. Sure the lure will have a nice seductive wobble , but much more can be achieved , how about cranking them down then allowing them to rise up through the water column before sweeping the rod point to impart a frantic burst of action. Even rising to the surface where a sharp stab of the rod tip creates surface commotion, then digging down once more to a more subtle action. Sink and draw spinnerbaits? Even slow sinking plastics can be made to work almost like topwater lures by begining the retrieve immediately the lure hits the water, by keeping the rod high, winding fast the lure will skip through the surface film performing all sorts of gyrations. This is just a brief description of the way I fish, there is much,much more to the subject, but for now I hope this is helpful.

 

[Philip]

Maybe an article Derek ? I am sure Graham would be happy to put it on the site if you can find the time to put one together. I am sure there would be alot of people out there interested to hear more from you on lure fishing.

 

[Andrew Macfarlane]

I'm another from the 'can but won'tstraight retrieve' camp. One of my favourite lures is the old 11cm Abu floating jointed Terminator. This lure can be cast and wound straight back with reasonable results but I find I get far attention by mixing up the retrieve. For the most part, I'm happy with a downward chopping style but I'll throw in pauses, hard stabs, sweeps from left to right and the tiniest twitches. Each cast is never the same. I always try to keep it different. I apply this to all my cranks. The floating Salmo Whitefish (brown trout pattern) is asmashing crankbaitand it's rare for pike to simply swipe at it. It's almost always engulfed.

The Salmo Slider and the Ace Sweet Shad 66 are generally glidebaits and most are happy fishing them walk-the-dog style, which works very well. So much so, I'd recommend the Slider as THE learners' lure of choice. It's so easy to get a good action going, it can be fished on a spinning rod with a fixed spool, more than adequately. It's my search lure of choice. Both of these lures can beworked effortlessly, which is good if you have a sore wrist or you're simply tired. This is not to say you can't mix it up though. More baits of this type are the Strike Pro Belly Buster and Buster, the Ace Siren and Flipper.

Another lure I should mention is the Rapala Husky Jerk. Now this might sound like madness but to get the best from this lure, take it out of the packet and remove the diving vane. With the vane, it works adequately as a straight retrieve lure but once you've removed the vane, it doesn't do anything at all. It winds in like a float. Use it with a very erratic, mixed retrieve though and it suddenly comes to life in a way that pike find difficult to ignore. Once you've seen how good it is at bringing pike in, you'll wonder why Rapala ever put a vane on the thing in the first place. You won't be sorry. I promise!! The Rapala Original Floater also benefits from this lure-vandalism.

 

[Derek Gibson]

Phillip, yes maybe an article further down the road, but I think there's a need to polish up on my writing skills. There's certainly much to cover, more than the purely mechanical aspects of lure fishing. And certainly based on the P.Ms I've recieved there are a number out there who want to know. Sadly one look through the thread will confirm that some definately won't.

 

[Paul (Brummie) Williams]

Derek....please forget your writing skills( they seam fine to me), just put it down as you see it, if we are uncertain what you mean we can always ask, you have so much to say and pass on you are like a breath of fresh air when compaired to the young wannabes who think they are gods gift to angling.

I'm a livebait man, unashamedly and unpologeticly, but i would love to hear what you have to say............life is to short to know it all!

 

[Derek Gibson]

Andrew, it appears that you and I share a similar outlook when it comes to lures. Could it be that you have noted the behaviour of fish swimming free? I have many times, and noted that ''not often'' do you see small shoals or individual fish swimming in a predictable straight line. Often as not fish will dart to one side then back to a pattern, suddenly flash then break surface. What I'm trying to say is that from time to time those fish behave in an erratic fashion.Should there be any pike in the vicinity that kind of behaviour winds the pike up, and often (though not always) results in a strike. This is something I have tried to duplicate with my lures now for many years. I don't and never would suggest that a straight constant retrieve won't work,because it does. But I do question how consistent it works when compared to the erratic lure retrieval that you and I adopt.

Again many years ago several angling friends and I tried to establis the validity of my beliefs by comparative trials over a season, on the same body of water. Three adopted straight constant retrieve patterns, two, the erratic anything goes lure retrieve. It won't surprise you Andrew but the grossly exaggerated retrieve with a variety of lures, won hands down, if I recall by a ratio of five to one. That was twenty seven years ago, every year since has reinforced my belief. Oh, and before I forget lest anyone may think it, all the guys involved in the above tests were of equal competance.

 

[Steve Spiller]

I think you have to think like a pike and a fish.

Does a fish just swim along without a care in the world, out for a Sunday swim? No chance, they have to have eyes in the back of their head or they are lunch! From a pikes point of view, is it going to waste energy chasing a nice fit fish when it can nail an injured fish less likely to be able to avoid its nashers?

The eratic retrieve makes complete sense.