The 1st of October

[Tizer]

Agree with most of what has been said,Piking is my main passion, would never fish for them in the summer,I have been using ONE size 6 single with my baits hair rigged to it for the last couple of seasons and all the pike I have hooked and landed have been hooked nicely in the side of the mouth,it makes un hooking so much easiler,the smaller pike you can unhook them without even taking them out of the water,happy days,i have dropped some but I might have dropped them anyway with what ever hooks I was using,And I sleep better at night knowing that if I ever get snapped up(which we all do at some time or other) the pike will only have a single hook to deal with.

[Kevin]

Is the reason for no Pike fishing through the summer because they fight harder give more and take longer to recover?
"Big hooks gaffs and cased fish" like that Shaun,years ago I had a gag,i put corks on it but it still was a bit of a brutal way to ask a fish to open its mouth.

[Shaun Harrison]

Agree with most of what has been said,Piking is my main passion, would never fish for them in the summer,I have been using ONE size 6 single with my baits hair rigged to it for the last couple of seasons and all the pike I have hooked and landed have been hooked nicely in the side of the mouth,it makes un hooking so much easiler,the smaller pike you can unhook them without even taking them out of the water,happy days,i have dropped some but I might have dropped them anyway with what ever hooks I was using,And I sleep better at night knowing that if I ever get snapped up(which we all do at some time or other) the pike will only have a single hook to deal with.

I have just had a look back and it's now 30 years since I last used a treble hook for piking. I remembered writing about using hair rigs so looked back through the old folders and found a piece I wrote in 1989 which may be quite new to a few

[Riparian]

Y Single hook rigs are very effective and much, much kinder to the fish. .

This is something I am about to try when using smaller baits, which I do much of the time. Any tips on the best hook for the job? I tie my own traces, of course.

Like an earlier poster, I gave up summer lure fishing a long time ago; one gets a high proportion of small fish which are badly damaged by the ghastly hook rigs on many lures. Pike have become scarce enough on many fen drains to need a bit of looking after.

[MaggotDrowner]

I start my pike fishing as soon as there is a coolness to the air, early in Autumn. Generally I start with lures. I use modern soft rubber lures with one big hook through the centre and all my pike go back fine. I rest them in the net first and 95% of the time they are kicking it as soon as it hits the water. I don't do much dead or live baiting but I wait until it is much cooler before I start that game.

I think the key to pike safety is the use of a powerful rod. Play the fish hard and get it in fast. Don't mess them about. Get them back in the river fast. My LRH no2 is perfect for this.

I don't fish for pike in the summer, because I am more interested in the other species then.

[The Old Buffer]

October 1st is the very earliest that I would fish for pike and only then if the temperature has dropped to well and truly chilly. In recent years the Octobers have been too warm by far and this year seems set to follow the same pattern. I doubt that I will go after pike until November.

I am not one to bother what others may or may not do and will do what feels right to me. I do use cane for pike and not the old tree trunk type rods either. I have a Marco 10' Capella de Luxe and also an 11' Peter Stone Pike Rod both of which have a delightful through action and are more than fitting for the deadbaiting I do, whether on float or leger.

I also only use circle hooks now and make up my own traces. I find the circle hook not only more fish friendly but also more angler friendly, making hook removal a simple matter (it is rare to hook the pike anywhere other than the outer jaw when using circles). I do not find that I lose fish through my choice of hook and one thing I do not miss is the way a treble hook can get tangled in your landing net.

Most of my piking is done in still or slow moving water, mostly in the drains north of Boston and I must admit that I am looking forward to those first frosts and the die back of banside vegetation so that i can don my winter tweeds or waxed jacket, my woolly hat and winter boots and submit myself to the north wind. Roll on Jack frost.

[Dave Burr]

Y Single hook rigs are very effective and much, much kinder to the fish. .

This is something I am about to try when using smaller baits, which I do much of the time. Any tips on the best hook for the job? I tie my own traces, of course.

Like an earlier poster, I gave up summer lure fishing a long time ago; one gets a high proportion of small fish which are badly damaged by the ghastly hook rigs on many lures. Pike have become scarce enough on many fen drains to need a bit of looking after.

The best hooks I have used are without doubt Owner Mutu circle hooks. I have lipped hooked small baits or hair rigged larger baits like mackerel tails. They look ridiculous but slide out of the fish'e throat and always catch on the jaw, usually in the scissors. The lighter ones are easier to set and are still capable of landing big fish.

Other similar makes will work but try to avoid the very cheap ones you may find on ebay and the like as they are brittle and do not have an offset point which I feel is essential.

http://www.fly-fishing-tackle.co.uk/aca ... hooks.html

[CraigM]

With you on the single hooks Dave (& on the October start).

I've been using two largish singles for a few years now & have scrapped my trebles. They make enough of a tangle of the landing net, let alone the fish if there is a break. Not noticed any issues with hooking vis a vis when I used trebles.

I use an Apollo steel rod as my pike rod. 3 piece, 11' & @ a 2.25 t/c coupled with a large centrepin for the margins or a fixed spool if casting out.

[Riparian]

Many thanks to everyone who has posted on this topic. I have learned much about hooking rigs - should have looked into it years ago - and now have new cane rods to track down and possibly purchase. My best wishes to all TFF pikemen for the coming season, whenever it begins for them.

[Santiago]

I don't go by the 1st of October with regard to pike fishing, and have had many good days on the Thames pike fishing with dead baits at night during summer months, but I do however normally fish for them in the winter months. I've never had problems with releasing pike in a healthy condition in the summer but the Thames is a big river and does not suffer from extremes of temperature like many small rivers and small ponds and lakes so is perhaps better oxygenated throughout the summer. However, contrary to popular opinion, the only problems I've had was a deeply hooked 12lb pike caught when lure fishing with a large spoon on a very very cold day in January several years ago. I guess it was so cold the pike made as little effort as it could to catch and swallow the spoon for certainly I did not feel a take but just felt the lure slowly snag the bottom. And what I reeled in was my biggest lure caught pike that came in like a large plastic bag with lots of dead leaves still in it's mouth, and was a very disappointing fight. The point I'm trying to make, is that on very cold days pike can be so lethargic when taking dead baits etc. one has to be quick to strike at even the smallest take no matter what method employed, otherwise one is more likely to deeply hook them compared to warmer winter days or autumn or summer, when most takes are obvious.

So very very cold days in winter also merit caution, possibly more so than most days in the summertime, baring those when there is a heat wave!! For on such cold days they may well just swallow the bait without moving an inch from where they found it. During these cold days I well remember catching several pike that made no indication, I just happened to decide to reel in only to find a fish attached. Perhaps this is another reason why circle hooks are such a good idea.