Philip says, “I am very interested in people's thoughts about bait size (live and deads). I have found that small baits generally only attract small pike (with occasional exceptions) whereas a big bait is open to attack from pike of all sizes. Have you found this to be the case as well and what is your optimum bait size?” 
My own view on this topic is that it depends a great deal on the water in question rather than pike in general.
Generally speaking I prefer a bait of around 6ins in length, but will go an inch or two either way without worrying about it. But there are waters where bigger baits are preferred and waters where smaller baits are favoured. And these preferences are little to do with the size of the pike but rather more about what the pike are used to feeding on.
I've fished waters where the pike average upper doubles to mid-twenties where they most definitely prefer baits of about 4ins and smaller.
Yet on other waters, where the pike have to hunt hard to find any kind of food jacks will happily attack prey that is not much smaller than themselves.
On a Scottish loch I used to fish it was stuffed with jacks of 3lb to 5lb which we caught by the truckload, often bagging 20 and more fish in a day, but none more than about 5lb.
Before we were convinced there were no big pike-eating monsters in the water we tried everything to sift the wheat from the chaff, including using float-fished live jacks of 2lb to 3lb, and half jacks legered on the bottom.
But it didn't make a scrap of difference, whatever we used was either snapped up or scarred by other jacks. 
Another local lake I fish occasionally responds much better to a float-fished bunch of minnows (one on each prong of two trebles) than any single bait.
Most of the Cheshire meres are inhabited by jacks, with occasionally a bigger fish or two that live on the jacks. But the situation can be so bad at times they'll have a go at anything.
The pictures are of a Cheshire mere 12lb pike that regurgitated the 3lb tench following being caught on a 6in mackerel tail
If you want to join the discussion on this thread then go to: My Way with Pike
