Pike groundbait

[philpot]

As the title says, pike groundbait, does anyone do this and if so what is your method. I intend fishing a lake with a fair number of good pike in so I thought it might be useful to get some scent in there.

Phil

[Daz]

maggots.....they attract bait fish ....the pike will follow
pike only eat around 5 times there own body waight each year.

but bread crum with fish oils in may work ok ?

[keithyg]

You can buy predator groundbait never tried it but know people who do and they swear by it.

From what I have seen it speeds up the session if you aren't on them already.

But chucking out a pile of chopped deadbait will do the same

[greygoose]

Tried chopped deadbait, I had meant to prebait but couldn,t get out there , never seemed to make any difference, but fishing two swims is probably the only test ,

[esoxuk]

The Duke of pike fishing Mick Brown endorses this www.dynamitebaits.com/news/2010/10/groundbait-for-pike-youd-better-believe-it
But I am a cynical old b*****d and never do, but my favourite method is free roaming livebaits around or close to structure of some kind.
A bait that kicks won't need anything artificial to get the attention of a hunting pike.

[cod301gmh]

Have you ever noticed how things go dead when a predator is about when coarse fishing?? I use coarse fish ground bait with a little mashed fish or oil mixed in. I find this creates a lot of activity from the baitfish, which consequently attracts the predators. I then fish either a live bait or dead bait. It has worked for me.

[Izzetafox]

Oct 4, 2012 15:43:42 GMT cod301gmh said:

Have you ever noticed how things go dead when a predator is about when coarse fishing?? I use coarse fish ground bait with a little mashed fish or oil mixed in. I find this creates a lot of activity from the baitfish, which consequently attracts the predators. I then fish either a live bait or dead bait. It has worked for me.

Totally agree.

If I have intended to remain in one swim for a long session I have often fished for silvers at the same time.
I think one of the best attractors is the 'distress signals ' sent out by a hooked fish.
However more often than not I try to remain fairly mobile and rarely spend over an hour in one swim.

I used to try injected oil attractants but rarele bothe now as me and my kit ended up stinking to high heaven.

I think the problem is often that bigger pike are not that mobile and tend to wait for a bait to come to them rather than expend energy searching so I am of the opinion that you have to seek them olut rather than them come to you.

Terry

[cod301gmh]

Agree. I used to fish with a guy who would groundbait a number of likely areas with the mix I mentioned before and then would mouch about over the areas during the day.

Has anyone tried an onion sack filled with chopped fish etc.., in freshwater from a kayak?

[fenboystu]

Has anyone tried an onion sack filled with chopped fish etc.., in freshwater from a kayak?

I think your gonna need a bigger boat..... ;D

I have thought in the past about chopping up deads and prebaiting a drain i used to fish reguarly the trouble was it got a lot of pressure and as soon as anyone saw you catch even a small jack you`d struggle to get back on the same spot,even the same area the way round that dilemma was to get down there when everyone had gone and fish late into the dark as they were getting hammered during the day they tended to stop feeding during the day and the people who were there during the day were unintentionally prebaiting for you..... especially at weekends so i ended up fishing tues/weds evenings as it got left alone and the fish rested and less suspicious i believe.
I once read somewhere Neville fickling i believe it was used to tie cotton to the tail root of large deads and throw them out the idea being that only the largest pike would pick them up and move on snapping the cotton easily but giving there presence away.

[Izzetafox]

Some of the most fun I had piking was when we used to fish Hobs Lot after the weekend fishing matches.

We used to wade to the edge of the rushes after the match nets had been emptied and spin or plug along them.

In the two hours after a match working our way alon the stretch we ( 3 of us ) could have as many as fifty pike into low doubles. All drawn by the constant catching of silvers and then the return of large numbers of fish some of which would be shedding scales and possibly not fully fit.

Fantastic sport.

Now you have a kayak prebait the in-accessible swims on the drains up the arms off far banks perhaps.

[fenboystu]

Do you mean hobbs lot on the 20ft, i used to do quite a bit of fishing up at the old railway bridge near there loads of pike with the odd zander and large perch all on small lives....

[Izzetafox]

That's the one we used to sart at the road bridge Guyhirn End.

Used to love night fishing there too many years ago before it was dredged and all the rushes were cleared. I haven't been back since the late 70's. Bream, tench, roach pike all the good mixed stuff.

[fenboystu]

Its still a very good fishery and a lot of reeds line the banks now,did you ever fish moretons leam in rings end ??

[Izzetafox]

God...that's a blast from the past yes.
We used to do the trek around a lot of waters.
We set off from Oakham in an old Bedford C4 van on a Friday night and fished on and off through to Sunday night then drove back. Problem was in the 70's there were lots of matches so we often had to move around.

I used to love just fishing over a lily pad you never knew what was coming next. Then in the evening it was ground bait and ledger and a dough bobbin on the line after bream and tench.

I even remember the bream and roach shoals on the Relief Channel then one day I caught this fish that looked like a vampire and had glassy looking eyes and things never seemed the same after they came.

Does anyone else remember the Coypu?

Terry

Oh the good old days.

[fenboystu]

Theres some nice carp in the leam now if you know where to look for them,how about the drain that runs parallel to it used to get some cracking tench and bream in that one oh and the rudd a fantastic gold colour with bright red fins fantastic to watch in the clear weedy stretches and the big pike.....
Oh the memories... getting dropped off as a teenager fishing through the night with a mate then getting picked up the following evening without a care in the world. No bivvies or mod cons in those days just a brolley and a sun lounger to kip on

[Izzetafox]

The only bad thing was some evenings the mist just settled into the drain and soaked you.

Oh yes the rudd they used to run to a nice size too. In those days some of the drains were more like old estate lakes with the variety and quality of fish they held.

Maggots, bread and worms and casters were called chrysalis in those days......

[cam]

and the maggots were called gentles

[Izzetafox]

Oct 7, 2012 21:34:00 GMT cam said:

and the maggots were called gentles

Now that is very Mr Crabtree.....
We used to go to the Cottesmore Hunt Kennels as kids, they had a shed where they hung the meat for the hounds and we were allowed to go and get the maggots....deep breathe, run in with bait box and run out. Handful of sawdust and away you go.

We also used to get well rotted manure full of redworms from the stable yard and use it as groundbait for bream and tench. Nothing better.

[greygoose]

I used to get my own "gentles" to ,they were always bloody small,wrong fly's I supose and once dug out a wasp nest for the grubs,my brother got stung dozens of times ! but he did keep the wasp of me ! His flapping about just atracted them more ! I still feel a bit guilty about it ,but a young fisherman needs his bait!
And I love fishing isolated drains with my mates , but occasionaly the banks would slip ,bloody lucky we didn't drown!