Favourite Pike Bait

Duzzie

Seeing as the pike season is upon us again, what is your favourite bait for piking?? Personally I have had my best results on trout or makerel. If I have to plump for one, i guess it would have to be the trout.

sickpuppy

I find a small float fished jack russell puppy highly effective in summer months.
Seriously perch hardy on the line unlike soft baits like roach or else i could learn to
rig a bait correctly

Duzzie

sickpuppy wrote: »

I find a small float fished jack russell puppy highly effective in summer months.

I didn't add that one as I always find it hard to get jack russells onto the hook. :D:D

coolwings

Fresh Sardine.
Oily fish full of natural attractants
Soft ... they never drop it when it crushes and the juices come out.
Soft also = hooks pull out of the bait and into the pike with relative ease.
Colour is silver ... high visibility

Cons: due to the softness recasting should be avoided, so it favours trolling and static fishing techniques.

If I can't get sardines, my next choice is half trout, and roach, then herring

yank_in_eire

Unfortunately it's not legal in this country but nothing catches pike like a live fish struggling on a hook. Chuck it out and wait for em to hear the dinner bell!

Kess73

Makerel, herring or eel sections for me mostly, and smelts on one small lake.

blue diver

Hers one fore ye. get a pair of tights 1ore 2 kg of chicken liver in the tights with the liver tie it on a peace of rope feck it in the lake and sit back and reel them in:D

8k2q1gfcz9s5d4

all those baits are good, the fresher the bait the better

A-Trak

Smelt for me, always seems to save the day on a few venues.

I have never has so much as a bite never mind a run on lamprey.
From the amount of blood that pour out of them when you cut them I would've imained they'd be brilliant on the right venues.

Not for me though!

Duzzie

Has any tried Pollans?? I tried it on Darravaragh a few weeks ago and didn't get a sniff of a bite. That said, there were 10 odd boats out and 1 fish was caught, so i guess thats not a good indication of whether its a good bait. It seems to be the new wonder bait in the UK at the mo so just wondered if anyone has used it. It is meant to be good as it is oily and the fish has a large swim bladder making it naturally boyant and therefore good as a popped up bait.

Any views??

Duzzie

A-Trak

would recommend polan alright.

Is a great bait, caught my heaviest last season (just under 20lb) on a polan.

coolwings

About ten years ago I used pollan extensively.
They produce results, and are a bouyant naturally popup bait.
After much testing I eventually decided that for trolling any silver side bait of similar size/visibility is equally good, and a large sardine was superior.
For static fishing I am happy to use a half trout instead, sometimes with oil,
Knowing that trout are not endangered, but pollan are I prefer to use the trout and add a popup gizmo like polyball or more usually injected air to lift it up when this is desired.

So a good bait .. .yes. But I prefer to use other species for conservation reasons.

Duzzie

coolwings wrote: »

About ten years ago I used pollan extensively.
They produce results, and are a bouyant naturally popup bait.
After much testing I eventually decided that for trolling any silver side bait of similar size/visibility is equally good, and a large sardine was superior.
For static fishing I am happy to use a half trout instead, sometimes with oil,
Knowing that trout are not endangered, but pollan are I prefer to use the trout and add a popup gizmo like polyball or more usually injected air to lift it up when this is desired.

So a good bait .. .yes. But I prefer to use other species for conservation reasons.

Hadn't realised that they were endagered. Fair play to you for letting you concience guide you. Will have to think again about using Pollans. Thanks for the heads up.

Duzzie

A-Trak

coolwings wrote: »

So a good bait .. .yes. But I prefer to use other species for conservation reasons.

Fair play, did not know that.

adonis

i had some good pike on floated lamprey...lots of blood etc...seems to have worked better on rivers though not that i think of it

coolwings

Adonis: Did you ever try eel sections? I have heard good reports - tough, cast well, oily fish, stays on hooks ... Just haven't got round to trying them myself yet.

adonis

yeah eel sections worked fine too, trotting a float - again on a river though
i find that roach are very good for the bigger pike, it also depends on the water though really...
alkl my proper big pike have been on roach -

demanufactured

funnily enough adonis mine have too , even with all the other baits i use

coolwings

I suspect visibility is the key .... silver sides.
My best are on sardines and roach.
I have reduced it down to these for mobile fishing, and when something different is required a half trout, or half mackerel gives an extra oily scent leak, and a slightly different flavour.
The other exotics and dyed baits are sitting in my fridge for years, but these ones get used all the time.

blue diver

would recommend this one if nothing has happened.get yourself a swim feeder stuff it with cotton wool soke it with some pilcher oil clip it on instead of weight. whack it out sit back and dream:D

scorpyjoe

tried this moons ago, but found i was getting a lot of dropped runs???? worked out the pike were homing in on the oily wool rather than the hook bait,when i struck into the aul esox they just let go.

coolwings

I don't bother with swimfeeders.
There is no need for feed. That is a technique developed for particle bait fishing ... maggots, bread crumb, boilies, sweetcorn, etc. In particle bait fishing the idea is to have so many of a small item that the fish switch over to feeding on this item exclusively to other available items.

But we have a large single bait, and fish is what the pike are already feeding on.
So unless there are hundreds of other dead fish out there and we want to teach the pike to ignore them, and only eat our particular kind of dead fish .... see how ridiculous this is getting?
Any good bait carries enough oil within it to do the job.
If the water is cold and the oil disperses too slowly, additional oil can be injected, or even painted on it's surface. But you run risks of presenting an unnatural bait if the additived are unwanted on any given day.

Pike anglers should forget what they have learned fishing for other fish species, unless it complements the pike fishing. Don't be tempted to copy techniques blindly.

Note: I am not talking about pre-baiting here, I am saying free feeding, groundbaiting, etc while during pike fishing time is not necessary and may be counterproductive. Pre-baiting for pike works especially if fishing outside their home location and they must be drawn to you before you arrive.

kick-on

has to be a spinner!!!! have caught loadsa pike with just simple meps spinners and a trace!!!!

JMB88

Nothing beats a fresh Roach IMO.

BlueBandit

Cant beat a dirty bloody oozing lump of lamprey. how can they resist

bitemybanger

It all depends on what type of pike fishing your doing and weather conditions and clarity of the water.
For wobbling or sinkand draw i will use baits that are naturally available to pike like roach or perch, dark day--silverfish of lightly coloured fish and on a sunny day i will nearly always use perch or smelt which always works well.

Deadbaiting or ledgering, ill normally use a mackrel or other types of sea fish as they tend to be oilyer with a few SSG shots at the tail and some foam in the mouth or belly just to pop the bait up from the weed or from behind i stone, it will make it easier for Mr Esox to find, dosnt realy matter what colour the bait is when your ledgered for long periods once its oily, espically in cold water when pike are less active.

So to break it down
Very cold weather(ledgering)--As oily a fish as you can get, mackrel i find to be best
Warm weather and sunny(wobbling)-- usualy a darker fish with a couple of BBs on the line, natural to pike
warm weather and overcast(wobbling)-- Smelt or roach unweighted works best for me
warm weather (ledgering)-- A roach,percg,skimmer,trout but all as fresh as you can get them.

All of theese are tried and tested by myself and my fishing buddy and its VERY rare we have a blank day and we have caught over 50 pike in one day between us, Its not just about bait tho, you have to know where the pike will be at different times of year like deeper water in cold weather and shallow water in summer, look for structor/fallen trees, steep drop offs or areas that are regularly coarsed fished.
Hope this helps a bit. give it a go.