Big lures for pike

I forgot to put a link on here for this video I made a week or so ago. Pretty much me just sitting and talking about why I use bigger lures for pike fishing. It's not going to teach any of the experienced lads anything, possibly a few things I do differently may be. But for the beginner, novice and casual angler looking to improve their piking it should have in plenty. It's a long video so be prepared for that but it will help a few people I'm certain.

Link to video

On t' tube

I've had another little crack at a video and it's up on my fancy Youtube page. There were plenty of failed attempts at many things and a few choice words after faffing with software that wasn't worth a toss in the end, but it's not a bad effort and shows to me at least the potential for this little hobby. Would you believe the footage in this video is from less than an hours fishing after work this week, crazy when so much of my fishing for the last month has been devoid of fish. I've actually managed to catch a few Esox, on lures and had some fun. My next videos will hopefully be something a little more arty farty or have a theme to them, possibly instructional or possibly just none stop explosive takes. Who knows? So here it is in all it's glory. I'll soon have my own slot on SkySports if I keep this up.

Link to video

Recharging the batteries

I've just nipped out for an hours fishing and had a few perch on a pleasant Octobers evening. As I walked in the door I thought it best to bring the camera in and get some power back in to the batteries. You never know when you're going to catch something decent and It's my worst nightmare catching a nice fish or two and the batteries being dead. Shame that today the batteries seemed fine, I just couldn't put a decent fish in front of the camera. I bagged 24 perch in about an hour and half of fishing, but only two were over a pound with one of those a good pound and a half plus. It was a typical fisherman's tail though, as I wish you'd been able to have seen the one that got away. Why is it always that fish that gets off, the big one? Judging by the bend in the rod, the scrap, the line ripping off the clutch and the amount of water moved this perch was well over two. Ah well.

So where have I been these last few weeks? Well i've been here and i've been there. I haven't really done any serious fishing. I've gone for a look at a few spots, I've caught a few fish though nothing too special. For me it's still been too warm to seriously target pike though we're not too far off now. Then again, having not long ago checked the weather forecast a frost or two might be a while off yet even. Yesterday I was at the Selby region PAC teach in day helping out. A day which was planned with pike in mind but turned out to be a glorious sunny Sunday afternoon, not the usual floods, frosts and snow of past events. At least a few fish were still caught and people got to have a crack at unhooking and holding a pike, plus the usual rig making, trace making and generally having a good old natter with people who can answer a few questions. If you're new to pike fishing, get in touch with your local PAC and find out when they are doing a day, they really are perfect for all levels. Oh and a few weeks back it was the annual PAC convention where I bagged a few bargain lures on the second hand stall, a shiny new hand made lure from Craig Beverley which I'm looking forward to chucking seriously this winter and I even bought myself a new jerk bait rod. A Jaxon rod rated to 150g which looks so thin it really shouldn't be able to handle that much, but so far from the few short session I've had it's done a fine job.

So having scanned my camera I realised there wasn't much on it to post up. I even forgot to take it to the teach in day. I haven't totally failed on the fishing front, and I've landed a fair few doubles which mostly came on the ultra light gear. However i just felt I had no need to be faffing with a fish and a camera and most went back in a flash, but without a flash. On the perch front I've not had anything too spectacular with the biggest not much more than a pound and a half at a guess. I sound like I'm ungrateful but it couldn't be further from the truth. I'm the last person to be chasing huge fish, when they come I'll enjoy them and in the mean time I'll enjoy every other fish I capture. A couple of my fishing buddies have done pretty good though. Woody had his first serious pike session last week after getting the urge to book a day off work. He managed an eighteen and a super twenty one pound pike and I was over the moon for him. Everything fell in to place and he got the rewards he deserves for all the effort he puts in helping everyone else out. Another pal of ours, Matt from Fooling fish had a stormer of a week just gone. One session he had three twenties and an eighteen to the lures and then finished off with another twenty yesterday on the ultra light gear. That's just crazy fishing. Neil hasn't been out that much and the last serious session he had he was with Matty where they landed umpteen super perch in the two and three pound bracket. Thinking about it i think I've enjoyed not being a focus of attention. I've not been flashy, I've not had a million awesome blogs to put up and I've not been the centre of attention, I quite like that.

So where has my enthusiasm gone? It's still here somewhere but I must admit I've not really had any urge to do anything too serious. Unless I'm out with one of the buddies my fishing is solitary and I really detest the sight of other anglers on the bank. I know this comes from being a kid and spending hours fishing places no one else seemed to fish and having all the bank to myself. It seems that with this long spell of decent weather, every fisherman and his dog are out. Any plans you make have to take in to account either getting to a peg before some other angler or trying to find somewhere no one else fishes. Both of which are pretty tough to do these days. Most places have been fished around where I live and plenty of the banker spots are already known and will usually have a lure fisherman there. I expected that this last month or so I would have been on a canal I know, chasing some perch. I think i've been to it once. I know i've missed out but then so what? Scouring the forums, despite people coming out and naming venues, often you get to know where people fish and it was clearly evident that seven or eight lure fisherman (at least) were on the ball and chasing big perch, and that in itself put me off. Nothing against any of those lads. Some of them I know well, some of them I've told where to fish it and a couple i've met and they're real top lads. Those that I haven't met even seem spot on too. I guess I'm just a miserable so and so sometimes. Writing this paragraph has just reminded me, I did manage one two pounder i'd somehow forgot about. I actually took an old bashed up brute of a perch here on a SG 19cm 4play, my lucky rainbow lip lure. Another fish I didn't even bother taking a photo of.

I think I get more of a buzz finding out a place and getting a reward from somewhere I had no knowledge of previously. That can be a lucky first session or after the umpteenth return and finally working it out. I don't like things handed to me on a plate and I prefer to do a bit of hard work and any enjoyment from that is that little bit more special. Take today's session as an example. Had I landed that big perch it would have had me beaming from ear to ear and given me that warm fuzzy glow inside. I will get a lump of a perch from there at some point I just know it. I also found another couple of spots on my journey around new venues this last few weeks. None of them will be massive secrets and someone will fish them already. But I wasn't put up to them, I just got off my backside and went for a look. It's amazing what you can find if you're not just sat scouring blogs, forums and Facebook to see where everyone else is fishing. Shame on you that do, get out and do some hard graft and reap your own rewards.You might even enjoy it more like I do.

A fourteen that fell to a kopyto on the light gear

So what's next for this piker? I'm not quite sure to be honest. I have no aims, targets and goals. I'm not chasing a huge fish and as usual I'll just plod on and take each day or week as it comes. If anything i've probably only got one goal and that's to share some nice fish with a few fishing buddies. I was gutted not to have been there with Woody and to even be taking photo after photo of Matt's twenties would still be magical in my eyes. So that's probably my only wish this coming pike season. Well, that and the fact I'm praying the cold comes quick so the banks can be all mine again!

Good luck to all the pike lads this coming season.

The Fishing Quartet

What's up with me? I went out on Saturday and have only just got around to writing out my blog. I must be slacking. Saturday was another boat day with Woody though this time we had some company. Neil had his boat out and was partnered up with Matt. So four of us out in two boats which surely meant a few fish to be had between us. However in the week running up to Saturday there was a bit of rain and so the stretch we normally fish might still be a bit coloured. Without me knowing, (I tend to just agree as I'll ride on a shovel,) the lads had an idea and thought we might be better going further upstream. They knew of a marina to launch Woodys boat in and so made a few phone calls, and then tight arses Neil and Matt found somewhere to chuck in the portabote without having to pay, and we were all set.

Neil and Matt get ready for launch

It was a later start than normal as we'd been told that the marina didn't open until 9am, though we were all there an hour earlier just in case and we were in luck. Neil and Matt had already got their boat in the water and were just sorting the last few things out when we pulled up. It takes Woody and myself no time at all now to get the boat sorted and we were in the water within five minutes of pulling up. The fish finder was beeping away telling us that the water was only two and a half to three feet deep in the marina. I shoved the boat out and jumped on and Woody slowly turned the boat around. As he did I quickly whipped out a lure to put on. Usually it's something like a Rapala jointed shad rap to start off but I had an idea. Instead I grabbed my small copper Vibrax spinner, clipped it on and then cast out. We'd probably moved just ten feet and were still in the marina over less than three feet of water. My spinner hit the surface, I let it sink a tiny bit and then started to wind and within less than two feet of retrieve there was a commotion and I was in. Fish on and we were off the mark with a nice small pike of a couple of pounds. We got out in to the river and spotted the other two just fifty yard or so away and so we made our way to them on the troll. Woody then picked up a perch before we pulled up alongside.

Wait a minute, stop press. This has nothing to do with the story but I feel the need to share. As I type this I do so with a beaming smile. The missus has just plonked plate of burger and chips in front of me and I've just won a bid on eBay for a Cobbs lure for just over a tenner. Little things please me, I know.

Back to Saturday, Neil had a slight problem with a fuel line from his back up tank which he couldn't fix there and then so instead would have to just top up the tank when he had a chance as and when needed. More of an annoyance than a major concern. He sparked up the engine and that was it, we were off along a new stretch of river that to us, was pretty much uncharted by boat. We picked up a couple of fish which strangely to start with saw me catching pike and Woody catching perch. A theme that was to be later repeated a little as once I started to pick up perch it was clear that this was the main fish to be had today by us. Though when we bumped in to the other two a little later it seemed they were catching mainly pike between them.I wonder if there was something in that, something we were doing different. Woody likes to keep a nice pace to the boat and maybe Neil is a little slower, that could be it. Either way it meant that our boat by now was a couple hundred yards in front. We kept bumping in to the boats lucky mascot, a heron, which is also the name of Woodys boat. Every time we got up close it would take flight and fly off fifty yards or a hundred yards up river. I took the opportunity to take some wildlife photos for the blog in the hope of a decent heron shot, either stood or in flight. You dingbat! I forgot to charge the camera battery up! This is all I managed  to get before it packed in. At least Woody had his camera in case we caught anything decent.

It seems the lads had made a good call to fish up river. The water was dark, kind of stained but it wasn't too bad. The picture to the left kind of gives you an idea of what it looked like. It wasn't full of muddy silt and still had a decent amount of visibility so when we'd caught fish down at around twelve foot depth we were confident that the fish could see the lure and we'd keep on catching. If you've never fished from a boat the tactics are trolling, jigging and casting and you choose the technique to suit. It's up to you how you go about it and getting the choice right can prove a winner or a major loser. For the most part, we tend to mainly do trolling as you cover loads of water and if conditions are right you will pick up fish constantly. Basically trolling is dragging a lure behind the boat, as simple as that. However there are a few things that will help. Get the speed of the boat right to suit your lure. Too slow and your lure does naff all and doesn't dive. Too fast and the lure might spin out of control and come to the surface. So choice of lure to suit the depths and the speed of the boat will get your lure down to the bottom where often, most takes occur we find. As I said at the start, a Rapala Shad rap is a good choice. If you get one around 5-7cm size they can easily get down to depths of twelve foot or so. The Rapalas are also good because they are a very stable lure and even with a bit of pace to the boat they will still run straight. If you wish, you can add the odd jerk to the lure making it even more erratic and hopefully enticing the fish even more. Back to trolling speed, if you find that you are getting "plucks" which are probably perch you can speed up the boat which means those "plucks" turn in to hook ups. As said before, maybe that's why we were getting mostly perch? Trolling might look easy, or steady and boring to some but you still have lots to think about and work on. If you don't think about it and work the lure and choose the lure to suit, you will sit beside Woody all day watching him catch fish after fish while you blank. You'll think you are doing everything right but you are not.

Another useful bit of tackle in the boat owners armoury is the fish finder. Woody has a couple of units, one being his old Lowrance unit and he also recently got hold of a Lowrance DSI unit which is a good step up. Firstly the unit will tell you things like water temperature but most importantly the depth. So by monitoring the river depth and choosing your lure to suit you will get better results than just blindly trolling along. Once you get to know a bit of river you can quickly switch from a ten feet diving lure to a twenty footer and keep on catching. I've stuck with my ten footer while we've covered the deep water and watched as Woody kept catching fish while I blanked. Once we got back to ten foot of water I started to catch again. I now have lures in my collection to help me cover the depths, it's no fun watching your buddy catch all day. The fish finders are also useful for other things. You can actually see a shoal of fish on the river bed. Sometimes you're toddling along when there's a big ball of shadow on your screen and sometimes you pick up fish straight away. If they're perch you'll catch and if they're balls of bait fish you'll catch. Failing that, if it's a shoal of bream, Woody will catch a bream! lol. The units show you all sorts and it's a great bit of information to use to your advantage. The image below will show you the kind of things you can see. When you see this, you change course and get your expensive Rapalas out of the way before you lose them to a giant submerged tree.

So that's a brief intro to trolling for anyone who hadn't a clue before. Jigging might be more familiar to most without a boat as you can do this from the side of the canal or wherever. If we see a particularly fishy looking spot such as some lock gates, a water outlet, a deep hole or anything we might decide to anchor up and have a jig. Usually just using kopytos lures is all that's needed. Cast out, let them sink and then give them a little jig, twitch or whatever and if there are perch about you'll get one. Well we spotted a likely looking spot as we were trolling along. There was an outlet of some type. Water wasn't gushing in at pace or anything, there was just a small cloud of muddy water roughly ten feet square which gave it's location away. As we came up both Woody and I were looking at it as a potential fishy spot, when all of a sudden the surface erupted and fry went flying everywhere. Too good an invite to refuse we slowed up and pulled alongside. I had a couple of fish earlier at another spot when instead of jigging I'd opted for my copper Vibrax spinner. We had all been hopeful of a chub on this stretch and I felt I had a chance casting under tree branches, keeping my lure in the top two foot of water. I wasn't thinking chub this time however, it was perch I expected and felt I had a good chance. Woody though stuck to his usual technique and lobbed a kopyto into the thick cloudy water. A few flicks and as the lure came out of the murk something hit it. It was one of those, "I hope this isn't a small pike" moments and for the first few seconds you haven't a clue. You can sometimes tell by the fight, the pike lunging with strong burst where the perch tends to be more erratic often banging it's head side to side. I'm not sure at what point Woody realised it was a perch but I was getting the net ready just in case and as it came up Woody confirmed it with cries of "get the net mate." I don't think there's many things as knee trembling as a decent perch on the end of the line. As soon as it came up I scooped it in to the net, this one could be pushing three. I guessed poorly at two six but Woody guessed it spot on, 2lb 15oz. A cracker of a fish!

Woody picked up two more perch from this spot including another at around a pound or more but my spinner blanked. When no more fish showed we continued trolling and stopping anywhere we took a shine to. To say we were on a new bit of river we were still catching plenty and the sport was spot on. In total the stretch wasn't anything massive and we covered it there and back twice comfortably in a shorter time than we would usually be out. We knocked up nearly seventy fish to the boat and it turns out our fishing buddies had matched that too so to get knocking on a hundred a forty predators between us we were more than pleased. With Matt and Neil catching a few decent fish two including a few two pound perch, we can conclude that this new "back up" stretch has great potential.

Now get yourself over to Matt's page and check out his and Neil's version of the day.

My best perch from the day

Chilled out chucking

Having bagged a couple of twenties over the last couple of weeks, plus a few other decent fish including a seventeen so far this year, I've been able to relax and just enjoy the odd hour of fishing. The weather has been kind with no floods for a while so the river has been at least approachable, however a bit of a chill for a while has made it often tough to get a fish. As I said though, I'm fishing on the back of some success and for someone who wants to just enjoy my fishing, those couple of lumps have made it so much easier and I can just go fishing.

I can't believe how easy it is to fish when results have been so good. On one session, I lost four fish off the hook and ended up blanking. Each one nailed the lure, each one I was battling and each one somehow shook the hooks. Two were jacks but two were mid doubles easy with one of those pushing for a touch higher too. So what! How can I still be smiling after losing four fish in an hour where I only expected one take at the most? I'm just enjoying fishing, simple as that.

I've managed to land a few fish too. No extraordinary sessions, no more river twenties but I'm a very happy fisherman right now. Every fish I catch gives me massive amounts of enjoyment. The battles are being appreciated and the misses and follows are all greeted with a smile. I'm so glad I'm not chasing monsters, fishing big reservoirs or sitting behind six rods all day waiting for one chance. I'm picking and choosing my short session, throwing lures I enjoy using and catching the odd fish. I hope I can carry on this way of fishing for the rest of the year. I've a few plans to get out and try a few new things and a few new places and I want to just enjoy the whole thing. If I can add a few fish in, I know that will be a big way towards it so fingers crossed the rest of the year provides even just a fraction of my early 2013 successes.


Here's a few of my favourite captures from recent trips. This first pike was one for a mate, Jim. I'd bought some lure gear, rod, reel and lures off of him and I promised him a fish or two on his lures just so he would regret selling them. First session out I had this nice low double and another jack which was pleasing in itself, but it could have been a fairytale story had the very high double which hit first stayed on the hooks!

I love using Matt Holmes lures. I have three of his large jerk baits and if the conditions are right they are often the first lure I use. I like how I can work them up near the surface which keeps me away from snags now the river is a little shallower again, and also sometimes you get an explosive take as a pike launches itself up from the depths. Often the pike have leeches on them this time of the year as they're laying on the bottom half asleep, and a lure is the answer to wake them up and encourage them to get up and feed. Also check out the fins on the back end of this fish. Wow what a little beauty this one was. An absolute perfect predator with a tail and fin to launch it at near supersonic speed.

Finally one from today. A nice fat jack that actually went over fifteen pounds. It had a belly on it, but it was also a solid as hell and was all muscle. It put up a great scrap and the speed it went first up and then down stream was something to be amazed at. Being able to see all this in crystal clear water was brilliant. I love fishing, I love lure fishing and I love pike!

2013 account opened, finally.

It's been really tricky to get out. The river has been awful and there was no way I could get anywhere near it to fish. I should have gone elsewhere, fished a still water or a canal or even changed tactics but to be honest, I just wanted to lure fish the river and nothing else. I only ever go fishing when I want to, not because I should be, so unless I had the urge to go to a canal or whatever I wouldn't be doing that. I didn't have that urge, so I didn't go out.

Saturday was the first time this year the river had been anywhere near right, but I was tied up most of the day being dads taxi and all the rest of things a father and husband needs to do. However, late morning I'd got a few things out of the way which gave me a window of opportunity and I took it without hesitation. It was only a window of just over an hour but that was one I couldn't miss since I had a feeling that everything would be spot on if I got to the river.

The water level had been dropping for a few days but there was so much water up in the hills it didn't quite run off as quick as normal and so when I got there it was still up a couple of feet. But pleasingly, the water clarity wasn't too bad, a couple of feet visibility was spot on and I was hopeful of my chance of a fish.

Recently I spent some Christmas money on a couple of lures from a mate of mine who makes his own. Matt Holmes over on Fooling Fish makes some of the best looking lures you will ever see. He's also a top angler too and no doubt we'll be getting together many times this year to bag some more fish. I'd been meaning to buy some for a while but never got around to it, until I went and bought a new jerk bait set up, and so wanted some nice lures to go with it.

Matt Holmes lure

So I gave his lures a good chance. Usually you go with a lure first that you know catches but this means it's usually the same lures that grab the fish. So putting one of Matt's lures on first I felt gave it a good chance of a fish, but after twenty minutes or so of getting used to the lures I'd not seen or had a fish. Time to ring the changes and so I stuck on another recent purchase, one i've had success with already and comes highly recommended by another top angler, Mr Woodchucker. Well I was only in to about my fifth or sixth cast with the Squirelly Burtwhen I felt a bang and then a commotion as the pike crashed clear out of the water. I was in to my first fish and the usual thoughts of losing it ran through my head but after a good tussle I had it on the bank. A nice little fatty, easily ten or eleven pound but I put it straight back without a photo or weigh as I wanted to make the most of my brief time.

It went quiet and I ran more changes but to no avail until finally settling back on one of Matt's lures to get me some practice with it and get used to what I can get it to do. The colour of the lure shone out and together with a tantalising side to side action, either tiny swings or big wide ones, I knew already this lure would catch me some fish. Then finally I had a follow but I only spotted the fish as I was lifting my lure out of the water. I reckoned the pike hadn't seen me though and so I just flicked the lure back out about fifteen feet past where the pike was. I was running out of water but just as the lure was within about four feet of the bank it ran in to a bit of current, and so I could gently twitch the lure to make it do it's stuff and the lure just hung there in the same spot. The pike couldn't resist this and it shot up from the depths and I was in to a little jack of around five pounds. A nice way to christen a new lure, and now I know for sure it works.


I was running out of time so made the usual casts about the swim making sure to cover as much of the area as I could. There's usually certain spots that you catch a pike from, maybe not every day but often and so I always make sure to hit these spots. But also similarly I always make a point of casting to places I never normally catch from, because if you don't cast there, then you will never catch from there will you? I chucked the lure up the edge into an area that produced two years ago when there was a clump of weed there, but produced little last year when the weed wasn't there. I'd maybe got the lure in about six feet or so when a pike crashed up from the depths and took the lure. I saw the fish and knew it was a low double at least and then it dived deep and went out of sight. The next time it popped up I could see the lure swinging wildly from the front lip, so I kept tension so as not to let the hooks flip out. I finally netted it to find another stocky fish, this time weighing in at fourteen pounds. A mad hour of fishing chucked in between family duties. I could so easily have put my feet up for an hour instead with a brew, but took the gamble and it paid off. Great result. I can only hope the rest of the year is as successful.