My Way with Pike

The first big pike I was lucky enough to catch was a fish of 23lb 10oz, in those days(early to mid 70's) I was lucky enough to fish a marina on the Severn above Worcester that had "illegally" been cut from the main river. The land owner was eventually made to fill most of it back in but I managed a couple of years of piking bliss, although I only ever had the one twenty from there I did have plenty of fish. After all those easy pike I felt I was ready to take on anywhere! but didn't I come down to earth with a bump! it was 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 that goes into their capture can be very time consuming and although gear and bait can be purchased easier now than twenty or even ten years ago a lot of planning 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 piking promised land. The only problem was that the midlands had a very active group of pike anglers and very often I was not the only one looking at or fishing such waters. Very often I was fishing a water when one or more of the others turned 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 pike fishing in the midlands and beyond was concerned and our paths often met. I think we all realised that the competition was hot and we were always of course 100% honest with each other about our captures - not!

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

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

If I had to choose my overall favourite method of piking I would, without a shadow of doubt, choose a free-roaming livebait fished on a sliding float so that I can explore any depth. Yes, the paternostered livebait can be a deadly set up and I have caught lots of pike using it, but in the right situation a free-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 to catch a pike. I decided to trot the livebait through the swim and first trot through a fantastic looking Wye twenty came my way; she obviously didn't like something about the way the paternostered bait was behaving! When using a free-roaming bait I would like to state the importance of a floating line between float and rod, let it sink even when fishing deep, and it's sod's law the 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, but these 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 the females seem to be more in a scavenger mode. At least on the waters I have fished, the most successful baits for me in this situation have been either roach, sardine, or smelt in an order defined by the pike on the day! But it can be well worth sitting behind a couple (or three!) deadbaits at this time of year.

Although I caught a lot of those fish from the Severn I talked about earlier on spinners, I have never done a great deal with lures it has never done a lot 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 and buying up the spoons, the bigger the better, and we were both going in and being told someone came in yesterday and had bought them all. We knew the others had beat us to it! All we did with them was cut of the handles and drill them to take hooks and swivel, a little red wool to the hooks and that was 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 the more I want to do and it is now just a part of my winter campaign not the campaign.

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