Pike: Sometimes Bigger Is Better

Dear readers,

I was fishing for pike last weekend. I wanted to test how paddletail shads work on my lake. Well, I went through several lures and I fished for two hours without any bites. After that I didn't change the spot, but changed the lure type. So I switched to a 20 cm Savage Gear Line-Thru Trout, and on the first cast I had a bite (but lost the fish). A few casts later I got a nice pike of 5,8 kg. It's not always about finding the right color, but the right action. You just can't be blind with one type of a lure, and think this is going to work 365 days a year. In my opinion, you will have more constant fishing with a range of different lure types than having a single lure type with all the color variations. You won't probably have the best color of the day, but you will have less blank days.

Oh yes - the topic of this blog was big lures. I found out that 20 cm lure is too small, so I changed it to a 30 cm Line-Thru Trout. And I started to catch pike with it. Even the small 2-3 kg pike were hitting the lure viciously. A 30 cm lure is just a snack for the big pike.

But hey, I'm just a beginner on pike fishing. Don't believe me :) 

A 20 cm Savage Gear Line-Thru Trout is in all kinds of trouble here!

Something Else

Dear readers, confessions are hard to make. I had a very tough carping season, with some success, and a lot of blanking. Carrying on my blanking streak to October, I decided it was time for change. It was time for pike fishing.

I know this blog is not about pike fishing, but I sincerely think I wasn't supposed to write about blanking either. So I headed off to a lake to start my serious piking after 10 years of "idontfishforpiketoomanyteeth". I fished from my old boat, and managed to catch a single pike, and I was already happy with that. Some lakes can be notorious for their pike - they are not always easy to catch. The pike fell for Savage Gear Da'Bush Spinnerbait 32g in color FT. 

I was also testing a new 2016 model of Okuma Azores 40S spinning reel. In our waters, it is the perfect pike reel, and according to my testing - it really is. I was fishing with my Patriot Pike Specialist (244cm up to 75g), and casted even 25 cm Hard Eel with it. Of course I had to be gentle with my casting, but it still managed to do the job. Don't still go above the casting limit. I won't be responsible for any breakages. :)

I changed my spot to a deeper area, but I still wanted to fish with the spinnerbait. I let the spinnerbait sink to the bottom, and started to retrieve steadily (with ultra-short stoppages). The first cast brought me a hard fighting 80 cm pike (3,5kg). In total I caught around 8 pike from that small area in a matter of couple of hours.

In the next day, I caught a 101cm (6,2kg) with the same Da'Bush spinnerbait. In total, I caught around 40 pike in 4 days of fishing. Not a bad start for my re-established piking career. I was more than happy, and I have got to admit, pike strikes are addictive. This will not be the end of my carping, but it is the start of my piking.

The pike with the lure still hanging in its mouth.

101cm pike after 12 pikes - it sounds all too easy. But it isn't :)

Pointless Ramblings - vol. 23

So days are getting longer here and I am reading fishing reports from my friends in Southern Europe... It gets me a bit jealous as it still takes some time before our season really starts. Weeks feel like years at this point - still eventually we will get rid of the ice cover on the lakes.

As some readers probably know, I have some experience in different fishing styles. (Two days ago I was fishing for zander on dropshot-lures, and I actually DID catch a nice zander!) Of course I always prefer carp fishing to other types of fishing, but every now and then I get distracted :) I can say that I started fishing probably at the same time I was learning how to walk. So being a fisherman instead of a carp angler has a time advantage of 25 years or something. 

What I will always do in the future is that I will try different fishing styles, approaches and target species. I will never be a 100% carp angler (I'm probably 95%), as life is too short to be narrow-minded. There is always new things to discover and fish to be caught. It's not just about aligning your 720 degree semi-stiff chod-roundabout rig. But trust me, carp is still my no. 1 species, and you will see this also in my future blog updates.

A small linear carp caught while doing some stalking somewhere around 2010. I remember catching this with Okuma Sheffield -centerpin reel and Prologic MP Specialist 12'. It was pure joy, even the fish was small.

If I remember my catches right, I have never caught this linear carp before. A nice catch in the autumn 2014 darkness. Here the setup was Okuma Trio 55 baifeeder and Prologic Fastwater 9'6" 3,5 lbs.

So my pointless rambling is coming to an end (this time). Maybe on my next blog I will have some interesting things to tell about my boilies or rigs. OR maybe I keep on talking b-shit. :)

Best regards-

Henrik