Pulling Out of Pike Ahhhhhhh

[Benny Cook]

I went to my local stretch of the Oxford canal last night and pulled out of 3 nice pike. I can't tell you how frustrated I was. Im using braid mainline straight to a 6" Spinning trace and lost all three pike on my new chubby chads, they have a big single hook on top with a treble dangling below. Where am i going wrong! Please enlighten me.

Rant over

[Michael Hastings]

Hi Benny, There are days when Pike just aren't switched on. They'll follow & nip at the end of a lure but they're not really feeding. If the water is clear you'll see that they hardly open their mouths when taking, whereas when they're switched on they will flare the gills & engulf the lure.
Short answer is you're doing nothing wrong, you could go back another day, fish exactly the same way & land 3 out of 3.
Hope this makes sense!
PS, I'd use a longer wire trace if I were you as well.

[Michael Hastings]

Hi Benny, There are days when Pike just aren't switched on. They'll follow & nip at the end of a lure but they're not really feeding. If the water is clear you'll see that they hardly open their mouths when taking, whereas when they're switched on they will flare the gills & engulf the lure.
Short answer is you're doing nothing wrong, you could go back another day, fish exactly the same way & land 3 out of 3.
Hope this makes sense!
PS, I'd use a longer wire trace if I were you as well.

[Aaron]

sounds preety unlucky to me
have you tried using a stinger hook?
if not it can be verry useful if there not realy "aving it"to say
all it is is a treble sise depends on the sise of the shad if you were using the chubby shads i would use a sise 8 but its up to you.

http://www.sovereignsuperbaits.co.uk/Info/Tips___Rigs/tips___rigs.html
copy and past it into the bar i think this would help more than be trying to explane it

good luck!
Aaron