| Mick Brown Angling Services |
| Lure Fishing for Pike My Late Summer Shallow Selection By Mick Brown Summer pike fishing with lures can be spectacular, with vicious attacks and arm jarring fights. Late August and into September are particularly good times to tackle pike with lures as they start to come out from their mid summer malaise. You do need to pick your moments though, carefully choosing the optimum times and places to catch them. Waters which are well oxygenated like faster rivers and clear stillwaters are usually more reliable than sluggish rivers and muddy stillwaters. You may need to get up early for the best sport too! Pike tackle must always be strong and reliable, but in warmer weather this is even more important. Not only will the pike fight harder but you must also land them quickly to prevent them tiring themselves out from a prolonged fight. For general lure fishing, this means using a fairly powerful rod rated to cast lures from 20 to 80 grams, a weight range which covers most of the popular lures in use today. The ideal rod length is about 7ft 6 ins. A shorter rod is often more practical from a boat and a slightly longer one might be useful from the bank if the waterside vegetation is dense. Teamed with a fixed spool reel loaded with 30 lb braided line and a reliable clutch, you are almost ready to start fishing! There are a few more items you will most definitely need. A wire trace is essential or you will soon be loosing your precious lures from the pikes razor sharp teeth biting through your line. My preference is for a coated wire like Fox Carboflex in 30 lb breaking strain. A seven strand uncoated wire is suitable but more prone to kinking and fraying than the coated types. You might like to consider investing in a titanium wire trace if you intend to do a lot of lure fishing. They may be more costly but last considerably longer, offering a distinct long-term cost saving. To remove the lures from the pikes jaw, a pair of good unhooking pliers is better than forceps, which do not grip so firmly. You will need a landing net and I would not advise ‘chinning’ them out until you are confident at doing so. This practice is fraught with danger at the best of times, but in summer their increased unpredictability makes it a very risky business. My ideal net is a round type with a solid rim and about 30 inches in diameter. The mesh needs to be a rubber coated hook-friendly type. This will save you hours of frustration from untangling lures which can really snag badly in normal micro-mesh netting. Finally, a good pair of polarising sunglasses will be very useful for observing pike following your lures and for watching how the lures work in clear water. It’s a good idea to observe how lures work in the margin and study how rod action can make them create subtle movements which might trigger a strike. When you are retrieving the lure at range, this will give you more confidence with them and allow you to work at inducing a response. The above tackle will be useful for lure fishing for pike at any other time of the year too. All you need now for summer are suitable lures. For most summer fishing, any lure which works shallow, down to about 2 metres, will be ideal as pike will be hunting the warmer upper layers at this time. Even over deep water, whether rivers, lakes or reservoirs, expect pike to come up near the surface for their prey which will often be basking in the comfortable upper layers. Indeed, you may often see them strike at the surface when feeding at this time, which is a great boost to confidence. The field of choice is wide open as there are vast numbers of lures to choose from which meet this criteria. To make life simple and to get you started, I have listed five of the lures I am currently using for shallow feeding pike. They have proven themselves on the waters I fish and I would use them as a starting point on any water. Storm Rattlin’ Chug Bug You must have a surface lure in your summer armoury and the Chug Bug is a traditional surface ‘popper’. A sharp pull on the rod tip causes the concave front face of the lure to dig into the water and make an unmistakeable ‘plooping’ sound which is bound to attract feeding pike. To see it ripped from the surface in a flurry of foam is one of pike fishing’s great moments. The Chug Bug is currently available from Storm Lures in an 8 cm version for freshwater fishing but there are also saltwater versions in 8 cm and 11 cm. The saltwater type only differs by the corrosion resistant hooks and is perfectly suitable for pike. In fact, my favourite Chug Bug is the 11 cm saltwater in Red Head pattern, a recently added colour to the range. It’s debateable whether colour makes a difference with violently worked surface lures, but confidence is everything and so there is a wide range of superb colours to choose from. Rapala X-Rap Subwalk This is a subsurface version of the popular X-Rap Walk surface lure. Swimming just below the surface in an enticing side-to-side action created by small taps from the rod tip, this can be particularly effective in wild windy conditions when the pike will not take surface lures so readily although it works well at any other time too. The Subwalk has an internal rattle system and you need to rip the lure occasionally to get the best effect from this and draw pike from further away. On a pause, the Subwalk either floats or sinks very slowly if your trace is heavy, giving time for pike to catch up with it and inspect it. Expect a ‘hit’ as soon as you start a retrieve from the pause! Like all Rapala lures, the finish is superb and although the current colour range is small (4 colours) they have been very carefully selected to meet the requirements of the UK angler. My preference for pike is the 15 cm version, but the 9 cm version would be a better choice where a more subtle presentation is required or in very shallow water of a few feet or so. My favourite colour at the moment is the Yellow Perch. A great Bass lure too by the way! Glidin’ Rap The Glidin’ Rap looks like the classic Super Shad Rap but without a lip. In essence it is, but it is also much more. This is a slow sinking lure and could be classed as a jerk bait. Although it requires rod tip action to get it to ‘slide and glide’, it does not require a dedicated jerk bait rod to make it do so. Neither does it require the use of a solid leader normally associated with jerk baiting as its movement is subtle and not prone to tangling with the trace if worked in a steady gentle rhythm of twitching and pausing. Check it out in the margin and see how to work it to best effect before casting out of sight. Although I have chosen the Glidin’Rap as a shallow water lure, it can be fished at greater depths too by letting it sink further. There are currently 12 cm and 15 cm versions and it’s worth having one of each to find if the pike have a preference on your chosen water. My recommendation? The 15 cm Banded Peacock but the Gold Shiner comes a close second! Clackin Crank Most shallow working crank baits will be effective for summer pike and in this category I have chosen a Rapala Clackin’Crank, a new lure in the Rapala range for 2011. It has the popular ‘shad’ body profile and an unusual lip which is designed for a rapid dive when cranked hard and which also acts as a deflector when hitting hard structure like sunken branches. It has the revolutionary Rapala Clackin’ Cadence Rattle which has been developed with predators around the world over many years. It is definitely a lure of the summer, benefitting from an aggressive rod tip action to get it clackin’ and wobbling. At 5 or 7 cm in length, it is also very attractive to perch and also to zander in shallow murky waters like drains and canals. There are some great colours available but for pike, my first choice would definitely be Silver or Firetiger in clear water and Chartreuse Shad in more coloured water. Vibrax Spinner Spinners might be out of fashion nowadays in some quarters but not with me! Small they might be but they have stood the test of time as great summer pike catchers. They are a great perch lure too of course but I have lost count of the vast numbers of pike to over 20 lb I’ve caught on spinners while perch fishing. They require little more than casting out and reeling in and are a great way of quickly searching a water for evidence of pike before switching to other lures. In summer they can be worked shallow and fast and then as the water cools they are best worked deeper and more slowly. You can try speeding then up and slowing them down but a steady retrieve is often all that is required. Choosing a spinner could be confusing as there are so many. Size wise, I would choose those with blade sizes 4 to 6 for pike but bigger perch will take them too. Because of their light weight, the smaller spinners are not easy to cast on the tackle I have mentioned for pike so you might want to consider using a lighter set up if you intend to take up this style of lure fishing on a regular basis, choosing a lighter rod (15 to 40 gm casting weight), with a softer action. 15 to 20 lb braid would be a better choice and a more delicate uncoated wire trace of 20 lb breaking strain. As with all tackle, it must be strong enough for the size of fish expected and for dealing with any snags in the water. Spinner designs are many and varied. Those with fluorescent bodies are better in darker water for example whereas others like the Vibrax Bullet Fly are weighted for longer casting distances. My all time favourite though has been the Vibrax Original size 5, selecting either a copper, gold or silver blade to complement the water clarity. I must say also that the Vibrax Fluorescent in Firetiger colour has caught me some great pike and perch in both clear and coloured water. _____________ Well that’s my selection of late summer shallow working lures which I would be confident to take with me until the autumn chill arrives. I’ll cover every inch of the water with them, paying particular attention to weedy areas and near reeds and overhanging bushes. Weir pools are great to target at this time. Early morning has proven to be the best time to fish and also the last hour of daylight and into darkness, especially with a surface lure. Try them at any time though and keep on the move, don’ t keep flogging the same piece of water. If pike don’t attack this selection, they’re either not there or not interested! Go and search for them, that’s half the fun! TIP - don't wait till the last minute to get your lure tackle ready. Plan in advance and buy your lures now and give yourself time to have a trial run with them if you are not too familiar with lure fishing. When September comes around you will be ready to go! Good fishing!! |
