Locating Winter Pike?

Hello All,

i fancy trying some winter piking on a smallish reservoir in Derbyshire. the water contains coarse fish and trout etc. are there any hard and fast rules about locating pike or is it just a case of looking for 'pikey' spots?

would it be a good idea in the first instance to take a roaming approach with a deadbait float rig and cover as much water as possible?

cheers

rich c

I wish piking was that easy,
I,m no expert, And it all depends on the water and on the setups you going to use,
I mainly use deadbait but now and again use lives,
my approach is to have a bait roving with the glider float, i also place a bait out at range and one in close,
locating them from pikey looking areas works better on rivers and canals, although ive had one or two from still waters using that approach.
I,m sure the more experienced pikers will have a better method...

cheers Nidge, it was never going to be easy...we are having a busy day on here mate

I wish i was busy fishing!!!!
Maybe try and get out piking tomorrow, if i feel any better bloody allsorts of virus/colds going about.
i know its not the flu...

Nidge has got it spot on, fish deads on a pair of rods, one rod at 40 yards and one sat close in, the best feature on most ressies is the margin so it would be barmy not to have on in close especially at the end of the day when the light starts to fade because this is when the better fish come on the feed.
Depth can be an issue on some ressie because they tend to be very deep at one end (The dam wall) and shallow at the other end whuch is sometimes a water inlet, both areas are features so give them a go. Dont be scared of taking a lure rod aswell, even a follow from a Pike is enough to give you an area to fish

great stuff, thanks lads.

the only thing i would add is, if your on a large water i would try to break it up into sections theres no point trying to tackle it all in one day and rushing around. break it up and concentraite on each section at a time, you may find different areas fish well at different times of year etc so dont dismiss a spot just because it doesnt produce on day one.

cheers Chief!

richcherr wrote:Hello All,

i fancy trying some winter piking on a smallish reservoir in Derbyshire. the water contains coarse fish and trout etc. are there any hard and fast rules about locating pike or is it just a case of looking for 'pikey' spots?

would it be a good idea in the first instance to take a roaming approach with a deadbait float rig and cover as much water as possible?

cheers

rich c

Locating Pike on large'ish waters like reservoirs in winter is never easy unless you have a small boat and a fish-finder, then it's quite easy. All you have to do is locate the small fish shoals like the roach or rudd which tend to shoal up in large numbers in winter, seemingly there's safety in no.s or so they think...lol. Once you find a large shoal of silvers, the pike are never far away. By all means start looking in the obvious "pikey spots" like stream inlets, deep holes or contours of the bottom, ledges or drop-offs, sudden changes in depth, locations of large summer-time reedbeds are also good spots to try but finding the bait fish is more important than finding features in my opinion, especially in winter. A drift-float set-up is also a very good way of searching a big water from the bank but make sure you use a floating braid of min 30lb bs. Floating because, with the distance involved in drift-floating, you will be able to pick line up much quicker from the surface when winding down on the take. A big capacity reel is a must for drift-floating. At this time of year, lures can still be a deadly way of attracting pike and an easy way to cover more water but as the water temps drop as we get further into winter, they will become less effective and "deads" will come into their own, we don't use live-bait in Ireland as it's not permitted...

thanks Jon, good advice mate.

i havent really started my piking campaign in earnest yet. tried an estate lake last week but there was too much weed about for what i had planned. the temperatures are really starting to drop now so i will be giving it a proper go soon.

i was planning to go to a local stretch of the canal for some spinning / wobbling but to my amazement i have learned that a well-publicized pike cull a few months ago actually took place on the stretch i planned to fish....up to 150 pike up to 18lbs killed to protect match fishing stocks...crazy

richcherr wrote:thanks Jon, good advice mate.

i havent really started my piking campaign in earnest yet. tried an estate lake last week but there was too much weed about for what i had planned. the temperatures are really starting to drop now so i will be giving it a proper go soon.

i was planning to go to a local stretch of the canal for some spinning / wobbling but to my amazement i have learned that a well-publicized pike cull a few months ago actually took place on the stretch i planned to fish....up to 150 pike up to 18lbs killed to protect match fishing stocks...crazy

It should be made a criminal offense to get rid of Pike in that way! There are plenty of waters that would benefit from a few more Pike.

i still dont understand how and why stretches of canal are stocked with fish (carp etc. the reason for the cull). even if money is spent on creating an environment to hold the fish, and bait regularly goes in there cant be any assurance that the fish will stay in that stretch?

Its a sad fact that even in modern times, humans still like to mess with nature and carry out pointless culls that will only result in a jack boom in about 12-24 months time

That's right, and the Carp will bully all the other species away anyway. That's what happened on the GUC years ago when Carp were dumped in it. What were once prolific mixed fisheries became nothing more than stew ponds full of Carp. So it seems the matchmen are really Carp anglers in disguise, lol.