Pike Fishing - Simon Beckwith
Pike fishing If you’ve never been Pike fishing before, it is highly recommend to go with someone experienced rather than by yourself, for your own safety, as well as the fishes, if you do catch one.
Much like other predatory fish, Pike tend to lurk and hide in cover ready to ambush their prey. Margins, reeds, weed beds, boats, any form of structure are always a good starting point. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean there’s not something there underwater that can hold fish. Look for topping baitfish, or even better, shoals jumping followed by a larger splash as this is likely predatory species attacking bait fish. Never neglect the margins. My first two casts in a spot are often in either direction down the margins before fan casting across an area at different depths, or to a feature. The margins are surpassingly productive. Be warned, it can make you jump when a pike hammers a lure at your feet! The venues I fish in The Fens are usually drains…..miles and miles of featureless drains, so it’s a case of getting your best walking legs on and covering a lot of water. Keep an eye out for local match results. If there’s high numbers of silver fish holding up/being caught in particular areas, you can almost guarantee there will be Pike nearby.
Equipment
Long nose forceps - Pike have up to 700 teeth in their mouth and an anticoagulant coating, you don’t want to be getting bitten!
Cutters - If you really can’t get the hooks out, save the fish from any additional stress and cut the hooks/trace out as best you can
Unhooking mat - Fish care is paramount, pike are quite delicate so treat them with respect. A dropped fish is an injured, or worse case, dead fish. Large landing net : being folded up in a small net isn’t ideal for the fish, so go prepared with a large rubberised landing net. The deeper the better as they are also good for retaining fish for short periods of recovery time before release
First Aid Kit - Massively overlooked, but can be handy if you do get caught by the gill rakers, teeth or a hook. It will at least stop you making a mess until you’re home and able to deal with an injury properly. Worse case, keep a hand towel in your bag, but first aid kits are cheap enough nowadays so no real excuse.
What setup and why?
This depends on the venues you fish and the size of the fish present really. If it is quite snaggy, you’re going to want a beefed up setup to avoid leaving lures/hooks in the water. If it is pretty clear, you can often get away with a lighter setup, providing the stamp of fish warrants it. Also worth considering is the weight of the lures you will be casting, a balanced setup will always outperform an unbalanced setup. A lighter setup for ‘finesse’ pike fishing would likely be a setup with a casting range less than 60g, spinning or casting reels is a personal preference and loaded with braid of 25-40lb. Lure sizes typically range from 4-12cm. There is definitely a lot of crossover here with lures for Perch, Zander and Pike fishing. Heavier lures would be anything above 12cm, typically in the 18-25cm range but can go bigger. Specialised setups will be required for the heavy lures, with casting weights anywhere up to 250g, ideally with a baitcaster/multiplier style reel with heavy braid (50lb minimum). Again, it’s all about a balanced setup, tailored to the venues you fish and the fish that are present. Scaling down can produce fish in colder weather conditions or on pressured venues, but you’re going to have your work cut out landing a large pike on a BFS setup.
Water Conditions
In clear water I tend to prefer natural patterns relative to the popular bait fish within the area, as that’s what the Pike will feed on naturally. In clear water it is also worth standing further back on the bank if possible, Pike will likely turn away from a lure or spook if they see you. Wearing clothing that matches the surroundings/background can be beneficial, but isn’t a necessity. In coloured water, something dark, or very bright will stand out or create more of a silhouette making it easier for the Pike to see. It’s worth adding rattles or upping the lure size to displace more water in murky conditions. In fact, it’s well worth adding rattles into any soft lure. In flooded areas or faster moving water, aim for the slack areas, Pike will try and preserve energy and move as little as possible wherever possible, so it’s unlikely they will sit in the main flow expelling energy for no reason. As with most fish, they tend to be higher in the water column in warmer conditions, and closer to the bottom in colder conditions, however, their eyes are on the upper part of their heads so tend to be looking forwards or up, rather than down. Explore the water depths to see what works when you’re out.
When to fish for Pike?
This comes down more to when can YOU fish for them? It’s all well and good saying “dawn and dusk are optimum times to catch Pike”, but that’s not viable for everyone, and feeding times can vary dramatically from venue to venue. If you have the luxury of spending a lot of time on the bank, you will likely work out feeding patterns/times relevant to the venue, so it’s worth keeping a note of that. I use an app called “Catch” which allows you to log photos, time, date and pin locations, so it’s a good way of keeping track of catches and trying to work out patterns. Dawn and dusk can often be productive as with all fishing. Brighter days tend to be less productive, but nothing is set in stone. Lures that create lots of flash can trigger bites in brighter conditions. Fish when you can, there’s always a chance of catching, and you won’t catch if you’re sat at home on the sofa. Actively feeding Pike can be difficult to catch as they’re often smashing shoals of real fish so there is an abundance of potential food in front of them. I often struggle to catch on lures unless I happen to have a very close initiation of the fish they are feeding on. Don’t let that put you off though, the takes can be savage when they’re fired up and on the hunt. This does however lead me to believe that a lot of the Pike I have caught have been due to ‘reaction strikes’, or have just caught their attention and their natural instinct takes over. Pike are naturally territorial and will defend their area/themselves with their mouths and all those sharp, pointy teeth. Don’t neglect night fishing if you’re brave enough to do so. Best to do this in areas you are familiar with for safety reasons, and try and go with someone else if possible just in case you do fall in. You will require a head torch or some seriously well lit areas, at least for unhooking. It’s not for the feint hearted but can often produce fish as not many people fish for them during dark, and as with other species, I imagine they feed confidently knowing they won’t get caught. Just be careful, it’s not worth injuring yourself or losing your life, for a fish.
Lure Choice
Soft lures (shads/creatures) Hard lures (glide/jerk baits) Hybrid lures (hard body soft tail) Topwater lures (Bit of trial and error this one to work out what works best, but good to have a few options)
Softbaits like shads are a good starting point and having a couple of colours in different sizes isn’t a bad option. Companies often offer different size and colour variations of the same lure. A shad with plenty of paddle and body roll is key. Once you’ve found that, you’re probably half way there. The more action and water displacement the better in my opinion. I have a local venue where a 4cm lure seems to work better than anything else, and a stretch of the same water further downstream, you’ll struggle on anything less than 18cm.
Glide and jerk baits like the Westin Swim are a good alternative and can be fished slower and more erratically, they often contain rattles for added attraction and often ‘suspend’ in the water which is when the Pike will likely strike. Hybrid baits like the Abu Garcia Peto or Otus have a hard body and soft tail, these combine the best of both worlds.
Topwater lures like frogs, rats, ducks and bats can do well in warmer temperatures when the Pike are further up in the water column. They can be quite hard to hook, but the strikes are spectacular to watch if nothin else.
Rigging and Retrieve Styles
Shallow rigging shads can also work well, to keep your lure higher in the water column, above weed, or in shallow water.
Straight retrieve as the name suggests is casting out the lure and just reeling it back in. The only variables are the depth you let it sink to before reeling in, and the speed at which you retrieve the lure at. Definitely worth experimenting with.
Spin stop, reel reel reel pause, reel reel reel pause. Varying the amount of time you retrieve and pause, Pike will often strike on the pauses. You’re essentially trying to imitate a injured or panicked bait fish.
Jigging like you would for Perch with a Ned rig can often produce in cold water temperatures when Pike are lethargic. Smaller shads and creature baits can often produce fish when other lures may be ignored. Anything goes, there are no rules!
Pressured water
Scale down your lures or use lures that other people aren’t using, or both if possible. I’m all for supporting your local tackle shop, but chances are a lot of people will be using the lures stocked by them, so it’s an idea to have a few alternatives that the fish aren’t likely to associate with being caught. Again, if most people are using 15-18cm lures, try bigger or smaller lures. Try and think outside the box. Jig flies/flies can often work well on waters that see a lot of standard lures.
In summary, their are no hard and fast rules: You’ve got to be in it to win it, you won’t catch fish sat on the sofa, and you can’t catch what’s not in front of you….add any other cliché saying in that you enjoy, but it’s true, get out there and chuck some lures around. It’s worth having a variety of lures, you don’t need hundreds, but a couple of colours in a couple of sizes is a good starting point, with a glide bait as a variation. Try to use a balanced setup relative to the venue and average stamp of fish present. Always rest your fish before release and try to keep the. out of the water for as little time as possible. If you do fish for them during the warmer months (although often frowned upon), beef your gear up to put them under less stress, and rest them for longer. There are plenty of other species out there to fish for during the summer.