Quarry Piking

Ive just found a disused quarry that is fairly large and around 60ft in depth and has been full of water for the last 18 years and would like to know if it would be any use fishing it for pike ?

I went for a loook around it yesterday and found there to be quite a lot of fry fish in the 3" range on the surface , Does this give any indication ?


Any help would be much appreciated as it would save me wasting a valuable pike fishing day .

Thanks

Give it a go!If you dont give it a try you may never know.You could loop some dead baits on cotton and leave them a few days in the pit then come back and see if they have been taken.

Mark,

It's got to be worth a shot mate. If there are fry, then there are fish so there may well be pike. They have sticky eggs and are a prime candidate for translocation by waterfowl from other waters.

10 years, let alone 18 is more than enough time to produce a good sized pike (15-25lb)if the environment is right.

Try spinning, you can cover lots of water at different depths, beg or borrow one of those smartcast things, look for shallows and watch out for spawning as it warms up etc.

You might catch, you might blank but seeing as you have the whole water to explore for yourself I would suggest it is all valuable fishing time well spent.

You might just hook the leviathan of your dreams! I'm quite jealous...

Cheers for the advice mate, I think i will spend alll day friday on it and have 3 rods out one at about 20 ft depth and 2 in the shalllow bay and just see how it goes.

Will sea baits put pike off if they have never came into contact with them before ?

another thing is that 18 years ago when the quarry was still in use and only part of it had water in it i know that roach were introduced.

Pike don't seem to have many qualms surrounding saltwater baits.

If in any doubt rotate your baits, use one saltwater, one freshwater and a lure.

I had some fantastic takes last weekend using a lamprey tail section as a lure.

Mark,

I would suggest you try as much variety as possible with your presentation. Maybe use one rod on a sliding float and try different depths (reeling in a few metres at a time and then leaving for 15mins), pop-up one off the bottom and leger one conventionally on the deck.

If it is quiet on other methods, be prepared to change tactics/ swim. As Pikey Paul says sink and draw or wobbling can be deadly on days when statics aren't doing the biz.

There are no hard and fast rules about seabaits. However if you suspect roach to be their regular diet use it on at least one rod. Other baits I would try for their fish-pulling prowess are sardines, smelt and lamprey.

The main thing is not to give up if you blank. Hope that helps.

For popped up baits I'd thoroughly recommend
Chris's poppernoster rig

Here
http://www.fishingmagic.com/news/article/mps/UAN/1964/V/3/SP/

poppernoster link


You really must learn to link )

only thing now to do is see if there is any pike in it !

Good luck Mark,

let us know how your first few sessions go.

forgot to mention earlier but you could do a bit of marker float work to locate any drop offs that the pike (if they are there) will patrol.

There is a possibility of eels too!

Yea i thought there might be a good possibility of eels in it , but thought this was the wrong time of year to target them?

I have managed to get my hands on a few photos of the quarry in use as my mate used to own it and they clearly show the road that runs into the quarry and a few good features !

Will let you know how i get on tomorrow !

Talk about a gift...

A non fished water, known to hold silver fish at least with photos of underwater features!

I'm seriously jealous now.

Mark,

Somewhere on this site (i can't find the bl**dy things) there are some entertaining articles on eel fishing. I think they're by Andy Nellist.

You could e-mail him for info on best tactics/ time of year maybe? (if you can find them!)

The first time you go, just tie on a lead and cast it around a bit before you start fishing. Quarries can be really snaggy as they often flood before they've finished working them and you get machinery and other stuff left behind.

The poppernoster's good for fishing places like this as if you use a long-ish lead link, you can usually bust this on a snag and the bouyant bait and line (I nearly always use braid fishing snaggy waters) will rise up out of danger.

Try and see if you can get a picture of it or some idea of what it was like, esp where things like the sump (deepest bit they pumped from before it flooded) and access ramp were.

Similar place I fished a few years back didn't have many pike but threw up a real big one every now and then. The margins, just over the shelf and weed were the productive areas, along with a shallow bay where vehicles got in and out while it was being worked.

Places where the sides are sheer, fish right against the drop off as pike usually keep tight to it to ambush prey and also hunt along drop-offs and any contours.

Try a chuck along the marginal drop-off and twitch it back towards you a yard or two every five mins.

Sea baits won't put them off, they're all I use deadbait-wise because they're far superior to coarse deads.

This time of the year I'd hesitate to try a new water as the pike can be very finicky or switch off and wrongly give you the impression there are none in there when they're getting ready to spawn.

I'd kick off in October or November when they're likely to be feeding more readily and at least give you an idea what's in there and whether it's worth further investigations.

If you're desperate try and find potential spawning areas and cast/leap frog the rods away from them if the banks allow.

Some of these places can be a struggle but one good fish makes it all worthwhile.

I would go along with Chris's suggestions mate.....exept i would use livebaits....one paternosed and one free roaming...and no i ain't gonna apologise to anyone!

I am with Paul,if possible it would be livelies every time.

But it is always worth having a deadbait out on your third rod.

Good searching Mark...........

Let us know your results????

IF THE BUGGERS ARE IN THERE YOU SHOULD (I SAID SHOULD) GET A TAKE ON A LIVE BAIT.
LET US KNOW FELLA.

if you want to know if pike are in there use lives, if you know that pike are in there and want to catch the big ones then use deads, it shouldn't take long at all to catch a small jack if they're in there on a live.

Hey all, dissapointing day on fiday as i had 3 rods out and then after and hour weather got real bad with the snow and a sheet of ice formed on the lake so that sort of threw a spanner in the works!!

Was not happy at all especialy with no fish being landed!

Gonna stick at the venue for a while and see if the pike are looking to play ball and i will see what i can get.

Hopefully the weather over here will ease off a bit and get the pike feeding.