Steve's PB Pike on Dead-Baits

Most people who know me  realise that I don't relish the  thought of early morning fishing, I prefer to fish the few hours before dusk, however my regular fishing partner Pete Gregory, who is someone I have always looked up to and consider it a privilege to fish with, persuaded me to join him on an early morning session for pike on a local water. So bleary eyed we arrived at the venue while it was still dark, the mist was still hanging over the flat calm water. I decided to start off with a bit of lure fishing and after a few casts with a 9" Jelltex shad I had a take from a pike of about four pound that took the lure no more than two foot from my feet. I have been lure fishing for pike for over ten years now and I still find "the take" (when the pike hits the lure) is one of the most exciting events in fishing. After a short scrap I landed the pike and promptly returned it to the water, its always nice to get a pike early during a session, it tends to take the pressure off slightly, knowing you haven't blanked.

I've not done a great deal of dead-baiting over the years, but is something I am doing more of lately. I honestly feel to be a successful pike angler you need to master all methods. lures. dead-baits etc, and know when to use the correct method that will give you the best chance of catching the fish. On several occasions I have had a follow from a pike on a lure, and have caught it by casting a dead-bait to it. I decided to cast a dead-bait to the far bank, and lure fish the near bank to try and cover as much water as possible. The area of water I was fishing was about eight foot deep, so I decided to float fish a suspended dead roach about 6ft deep and let it drift slowly with the slight breeze.

I always keep my rigs simple, it consists of a small live bait slider float, with a 8mm rubber bead and an adjustable power gum stop knot above it, below the float I use another bead and a once drilled bullet below. The wire trace consists of 18" of 40lb breaking strain 49 strand " Wonder wire" with two size six trebles attached, I carry several traces with different size hooks and different spacing between the hooks, so I can suit the  traces to different size baits. Being a lure angler I have always appreciated the benefits of braid, the very low stretch properties of braid enable you to be in direct contact with your lures at all time and you are able to feel the smallest of takes from a pike, I also prefer to have the direct contact that the braid offers whilst I am dead-baiting and live-baiting. My personal preference is power pro braid.

After an hour of fishing the suspended roach, which incidentally I had scrounge from Pete, I decided to try a different bait, so I scrounged an eel section from Pete. This also proved to be fruitless, so I decided to float fish a mackerel tail on the bottom, (the mackerel were actually mine) I had sent the wife to Sainsbury's the day before to buy them. I cast the mackerel tail to exactly the same place as the eel section and after a few minutes the float bobbed a couple of times and then disappeared. I wound down and struck into the pike, my 3lb test curve Dave Lumb P5 bent over and I could feel the pike shaking its head, at this stage the pike didn't move I just felt  its head going from side to side as it tried to shed the hooks. It then started to move very slowly and it kept very deep, it was at this stage I realised it was a big fish, I love catching all sizes of pike but to catch a twenty is very special indeed and I really believed I had a twenty pound pike on. The adrenalin started to kick in and could literally feel my legs trembling, the pike made a few very powerful but short runs then swirled in front of us, I realised then that it was a definite twenty. After another couple of short runs it was ready for the net, Pete netted it first time and uttered the words "well done you've got a twenty there mate"

We left it in the net while we got ourselves organised, unhooking gear, unhooking mat, camera, etc. I lifted the net from the water to the unhooking mat and placed the pike on the mat ready for unhooking, Pete then uttered "flipping hell mate its massive" or something like that, and we promptly unhooked it. A quick weigh with two sets of scales she went 29lb 8oz, a new dead-bait PB, and venue PB. One of the most enjoyable moments is watching the fish swim away, and after a short rest in the margins, she gave a big kick with her tail and disappeared into the depths, hopefully to grace another pike angler with a fish of a lifetime.