Pike Fishing on the live bait

Many fishes eat each other at an opportunity, therefore fishers consider, that predators are most inclined to be caught on a bait from fish or on imitation of live extraction. A pike, a pike perch, a goggle-eyed pike, a pike-maskinong, the American perch, a catfish striped and perches, along with some salmons and trout, - typical representatives of such predators.

I specialise basically on a pike, which catching both on the live-bait, and on a dead small fish. Meanwhile I will concentrate attention to this predator, but readers with pleasure can notice, that the same principles and receptions can be applied with success and to catching of their favourite kinds. In some cases I will show, how it can be made.

Catching on the live-bait - a universal method, catching on a dead small fish - not so. Catching on a dead small fish most widely practises England. I think, that data that the pike pecks on a dead small fish, there were in books many centuries back. But for some reason this method has been forgotten up to its second opening in the early fifties. Fishers have found out, that the pike eats dead fish not only from the reservoir, but also fish from other reservoirs. It has led to their use of sea fish, such as a herring, a mackerel, a sardine, a sparling and, the latest innovation, - a tuna.
We also observe increasing use of the exotic sea fish imported for our immigrants from such places, as Caribbean sea. She is fish of various forms, smells and colours, but it was found out, that with For fabrics it is easily recoloured by the help of a paint irrespective of colour. Therefore we can easily paint a bait in gold, yellow, red, even in dark blue colour which, under the statement of experts, fish is better sees on depth. The dead small fish was easily entered in our system of catching of a pike, with its three key feelings - sight, sense of smell and ability to catch and react to vibrations. All these its three feelings are used by the fisher, sometimes - simultaneously. Now we had baits even with a smell.

As a whole the similar approach causes weight of questions: and what for we need so much different kinds, colours and smells for catching on a dead small fish? The short answer will be that experts have found out: the pike is capable to learn to be careful of a dead small fish who means for it - danger. If it have some times caught on a mackerel, it can not peck any more on it. New baits happen are effective a season-other, and then it rejects them.

The pike, similar, is less sharp concerning live fish. She so often eats it without any problems, that even if she and will think eventually, that in live fish sometimes there are hooks, do it can of nothing: it all the same should eat! The assumption, that a pike can be guarded, has led to development of trailer tackles and systems of definition of a biting. Any of such systems can be applied together with methods with which I wish to illustrate.

Ground fishing on a dead small fish

The Most simple variant of catching on a dead small fish is the bait throw on a bottom. The Bait is equipped with two-three threefold hooks (depending on the size of a bait) and a wire lead which is necessary at any kinds of fishing of a pike. Without a wire - usually 8-9 kgs on rupture - the pike can easily have a bite a scaffold and, having swallowed hooks to die.

This method is simple enough, and a little that can guard a pike. As, having seized a bait, the pike can float in any direction, pulling or weakening a scaffold, the biting signalling device should be able show a biting on "flood". I prefer В«the falling leverВ», As it falls forward if the pike floats from the fisher, and back, if to it. In any case he warns at once about a biting.

For distant throws or for fishing in flowing water it is necessary to supply tackle with lead sinkers. I use sinkers from 300 to 850 grammes. At such method use of a signalling device of a biting is impossible, as the sinker is carried out by a role of an anchor and a floating pike stretches a scaffold through it irrespective of a movement direction.

Ground fishing on the live-bait

Both offered methods are applicable and for catching on the live-bait, only hooks should be established in an opposite direction: one through - lips, another - on a back about a fin. You can think, what the live-bait, having appeared in water, at once will float and will move constantly? At all is not present! Such fish as the bream or the small fry, has a lovely habit to departure on depth where its pike, most likely, and will find, and, for any reason to remain there in an immovability. On channels and channels В«the free baitВ» as we her name, always searches for a deep place to hide.

Naturally, it is the difficult method demanding constant attention, and it cannot be applied in places with plentiful vegetation. The fisher should wait, when the live-bait will stop, and only then it is possible to put in action a biting signalling device, and then with unrelenting attention to watch its movements, especially, when the indicator falls back. It not the most simple method, however he allows to extract the largest pikes.

The throw of the live-bait on a bottom or in direct affinity to it always yields good results. When we use a lead sinker, it is useful to use together with it and a polystyrene float which will not allow to the live-bait to hide in dense thickets at the bottom. Its constant movings upwards-downwards very much involve pikes. To avoid complication at a throw, the thin plastic tube is inserted into a swivel ringlet.

When the ground vegetation and sunkens create problems, we use so-called В«paternoster with a feudal floatВ». This method allows to hold the live-bait On any distance from a bottom it is simple by change of length of a scaffold between a sinker and the top ringlet of a swivel. He assumes use of two wire leads because if the live-bait suddenly will float upward, it can get confused in the top scaffold, and the pike easily will have a bite it at attack. Use of a short lead for the live-bait and longer from above practically solves this problem.

To avoid tackle complication when the live-bait floats there-here, it is necessary to cover knot of connection with a silicone tube. It is the true approach as the live-bait moves at one level, irrespective of depth of a reservoir so, this tackle can be used in any checked up place.

Besides, using the sliding lock knot, it is possible to fix a polystyrene spherical float so that it it was visible on a surface of water and it would serve as an original signalling device of a biting. Unique inconvenience is that when the pike suffices a bait, it suffices also all the rest: a lead, sinkers and other. Theoretically it should lead to occurrence of strong resistance that can lead to a bait descent before the fisher will have time to cut. In practice the such happens extremely seldom.

the Tackle which is not creating resistance

When the pike does not show due activity to draw its attention, it makes sense to offer it the live-bait with a great freedom of movement on the special tackle which are not creating resistance at a biting. This invention is synthesis of ideas of the several "advanced" fishers. Action of this tackle is that: the pike, having seized a bait, leaves a sinker and a float there where they and were and as at a fishing-lines biting at once leaves a clip on a butt of the fishing-rod, no resistance arises.

Certainly, the fisher can take advantage and a dead small fish, but is better this tackle approaches for fishing on the live-bait. The live-bait can freely move, because the fishing line is not tense almost, and, besides, to move and a float. But thus it cannot confuse tackle as the bottom lead is shorter, than fishing-lines from a float to занавесочному to a ring. Theoretically the live-bait can get confused in a fishing-lines or the top lead, but in a life the such happens not often. The top lead - simply precaution. When the pike languid and badly pecks, this tackle gives to the fisher appreciable advantages before others. Personally to me it has brought many large pikes.

The Floating bait

Before passing to tackles with a float floating on a surface, I would like to tell about one method of catching on a dead small fish. In this case that the bait kept surface, it do floating. Fresh-water fish can be pumped up air from a syringe. With sea fish this way is not necessary, as it badly holds air, but it is possible to adhere to it a polystyrene ball approaching on the size or to place inside the balza sticks covered with a varnish.

This method the most advantageous in sense of irritation of sight and sense of smell of a pike. Eyes at pikes are arranged so, that is better they see ahead and above, therefore they will see a bait which is on some distance from a bottom more likely. Practice shows, that the pike will give the preference to a bait which is above, than laying at the bottom more likely. However, there was also the return.

Drifting floats

All are occupied with a question what to choose from tackles on the next exit on fishing, and often many stop the choice on tackle with a superficial float. Once, very long time ago, we used round floats which were very inconvenient that created appreciable resistance at a biting. Modern floats are much more perfect, and the new methods of fishing generated by them, yield remarkable results.

Superficial floats both for catching on the live-bait, and for a dead small fish, as a rule, have the cigar-shaped form and a through aperture in the middle. In an ideal a float Should be such size to support a bait and a sinker on a fishing-lines below itself, and the scaffold over it should be oiled and keep on a water surface independently. If the scaffold sinks, it will deprive a mobility float, and there will be a danger of complication of a bait in the sunk scaffold. Usually similar tackles throw on purpose to lower a bait over a certain place, however if the live-bait large enough, it is possible to try to force to float it against a wind. For this purpose it is necessary to try to hold a scaffold between a fishing-rod and a float whenever possible a straight line. If on a fishing-lines below a float the bend is formed, the live-bait there and then starts to feel resistance and tries to leave from it, moving towards the fisher.

To think fishers began inevitably about possibility somehow to supervise a direction of movement of a float, and here was born winged a float gradually brought to perfection. The original idea consisted in a throw downwind a float with impeller in a sail role, and the fisher simply etched after it the greased scaffold. However, it became fast clearly, that the float is capable on much bigger. It has appeared, that it it is possible to force to move, as a yacht, across a wind tacks, to the right or on the left, how the fisher operates a scaffold.

Now began possible to survey at first a coastal part of lake, and then a slow zigzag to send a float with equipment on a deep place. It is possible to cover with one such tackle all that space which was necessary earlier To survey different types of tackles, for example, a wobbler or a fluctuating spoon-bait. She offers predators a live or dead bait which, as a rule, is much more attractive, than brilliant slices of metal or plastic. The float also can survey the spaces inaccessible to the fisher with a bait and even to the one who uses a distant throw of a bait. I caught with a drifting float on distance in 270 metres, though the most real distance - from 70 to, a maximum of 140 metres.

The way of management depends on a wind direction, but the maneuvers described above, are possible only at a wind from a back. The fishing lines should be necessarily greased. Make a throw and allow a wind to grasp impeller. The tackle will move at once downwind but if you want that the float has floated across a wind, you should to cease etch a scaffold. The smooth bend on the right or to the left of a float is formed. If on the right, a float slowly slide to the right, and if the vegetation ashore allows, the fisher can simply move after a float while that surveys the chosen place. When the float will leave so far, how much can (or how much you can pass behind it), etch 10 more - 20 metres of a fishing line, then, having lifted a fishing-rod upwards, tear off from a surface of water as much as possible fishing line and move on the left. It will create a smooth bend to the left of a float, and it obediently slide for you, surveying new territory.

Thus it is possible to survey extensive spaces, including promising edges of the islands, the flooded hills or ledges about which any fisher respecting knows. Modern graphic or digital navigators such, as В«lowrance needlesВ» (Lowrance Eagle), do mapping of water spaces by simple business. The fisher by a boat can use a drifting float for fishing on the chosen places near to coast and gulfs which have especially grown with a reed where so often there are pikes and other predators. It is very versatile and productive method yielding the best results on depths from 3 to 7 metres.

On such reservoirs I usually catch on half or two thirds of depth. I hear a question: and what to do, if the reservoir shallow on distance of the maximum throw, and is much deeper further? This problem easily dares by means of a soluble tape PVA glue about which I already spoke in section "accessories". If you were going to fish on depth of 4 metres, and the float needs to overcome shoal depth of 2 metres, adjust tackle on 4. Then fasten on a fishing-lines, say, on 2,5 metres above a wire lead, simple sliding knot, adhere a lead swivel to a loop by means of a tape or a thread PVA. As a rule, the float reaches deep water earlier, than the tape or a thread PVA will thaw, and lowers a bait on the necessary depth.

Other way assumes balloon use. Fix a paper clip on a swivel of a lead and insert into it a ball. If it also to adhere a tape PVA, it precisely will not break during a throw. When the ball delivers tackle in the necessary place, the tape PVA will thaw, and one strong jerk by a fishing-rod will be enough that the ball was released. The Bait falls on the necessary depth, and the float takes the place. This method also can be used for delivery of the majority of other tackles about which I already told, on the distances unattainable at a simple throw.

The Live-bait or a dead small fish?

Use as a bait of the live-bait and a dead small fish represents the most effective methods at pike catching. Before telling about ways of application of these or similar methods for other fish, I would like to talk about productivity both. Someone declares, that they are equally effective, but my experience shows, that it not so. Having analysed how I have caught the last 200 pikes in weight more than 4,5 kgs, I have come to conclusion, that two thirds have been caught on the live-bait in spite of the fact that dead small fishes were used as often.

It is said that on a dead small fish the greatest pikes are caught, and to some extent it is the truth. However from my pikes in weight more than 9 kgs, on the live-bait have got a little more than on a dead small fish, including my greatest pike in weight in 14 kgs. On the other hand, I seriously consider, that for catching of pikes of any size, but in a considerable quantity, the tackle with a bait is more productive, but about it is in other sections of the book. Nevertheless, to take from pike catching everything, the fisher should own all three ways equally well.

Before passing to less large predators, - last council, concerning a way of a throw of a dead small fish on the big distance without risk to lose a bait in air and needlessly to fix it so strongly, that it would be then almost impossible to drive hooks in a pike. We name corresponding tackle В«ejectorВ» for quite clear reasons. The ejector incurs all pressure arising at a throw, and the bait freely hangs down from it through a loop from the strong scaffold, adhered to the bottom end. At once after a throw rubber stretches and dumps a loop. So easily fixed bait can be thrown much further, than at a usual throw when all pressure is incurred by hooks.