From the outset I have to admit, I love lure fishing. I love making my own lures and working them.
When walking the riverbanks, on idyllic summer days, nothing gives me greater pleasure than casting a lure to the far bank, watching the braid arcing out into the sunlit breeze, then stopping the line to drop the lure within inches of my chosen spot near to the reeds along the far bank.
Then there is something almost magical in the retrieve, the feel of the lure pulling and tugging, applying just the right pressure to make it behave as I want it to, watching it in crystal clear water hover, dive and veer in response to the twitching of the rod tip and the turning of the reel handle.
Occasionally, when I am so enjoying myself, I catch sight of a threatening, ominous dark shadow, with large and gaping mouth, lunging from the darkness, straight towards my lure.
My instinctive (and perhaps somewhat comical) reaction to this sudden threat, is usually to attempt to jerk the lure to safety, away from the violent and aggressive attacker, usually with an accompanying and equally instinctive yell of “GERROFIT”!
Fortunately, my reactions are slower than the pike’s and my instinctive attempt to rescue the lure usually results in a strike, just at the right moment to set the hooks.
As the line momentarily goes solid, I suddenly wake up and remember what the whole point of the exercise is, and as the clutch takes the strain of the pike’s first powerful rush, remember that what is to come is even more fun than simply casting and working the lure.
Getting so much pleasure from making and fishing lures, I am always ready to give anything a try. So when I read of the current fashion for using very large lures, it was round to the DIY store for a length of one inch doweling and I was soon in possession of several fat lures over nine inches long, painted and ready to use.
Later, when testing them out in the bath, I realised I had a buoyancy problem. The lures refused to dive, they would just topple onto their sides and go off at an angle.
This meant another trip to the DIY shop for a strip of adhesive window lead. With a length of this lead stuck to the bottom of the lures, the problem was sorted and I was ready to fish.
I could barely wait for my next session, but with such a heavy and unfamiliar weight, it was with trepidation that I made my first cast.
The lure flew higher than I meant it to, then dropping spectacularly, it crashed into the water, giving more than a passable imitation of a house brick being dropped from the Forth Bridge.
I hadn’t previously been conscious of the country sounds but their cessation startled me. The larks had stopped singing, the water-voles had stopped chewing, and the sheep along the far bank had stopped bleating. They were now looking at each other nervously and eyeing the splashdown point with a deep and frightful suspicion.
At that moment, two mute swans decided that another part of the river would be safer, and took off with their characteristic whistling wing-beats. This seemed to be a signal for the sheep to move to another part of their field, quickly – not quite a stampede, more of a ‘panicky trot’.
As the epic ripples made their way across the still water toward me, I had the feeling that all aquatic life had similar thoughts and that everything which could swim, hop or crawl was now moving rapidly both upstream and downstream as fast as fins and adapted legs would allow.
No need to worry about unexpected attacks on my lures today, I thought.
My second cast was to almost the same spot, with a slightly lower trajectory but with the same general effect as the previous cast, except that this time the sheep were eyeing me with suspicion from a much safer distance.
Before the spray from the lure’s entrance had hit the water, and before I had a chance to turn the reel handle, there was a second explosion on the surface, just where the lure had entered. I don’t remember striking, but I was straight into a smallish but game jack pike. I still don’t know who was most surprised, me or the sheep.
That incident, more than any other, confirmed in my mind the belief which I had been developing, that splashes rather than frightening pike, actually attracts them.
Now in my experience, when it comes to the appearance of an angler against the skyline, a shadow on the water, or a heavy footfall on the bank, pike are even shyer and more easily spooked than chub. So it didn’t seem to be right that a gigantic splash would not clear the swim.
Later I thought about this incident more deeply and tried to see things from the pike’s point of view. To Esox, almost anything moving in its environment is either a potential threat, or a potential meal. Something moving about on the riverbank, or hovering over the water is very unlikely to transform into a meal, it could however be something looking for meal. Common-sense, and possibly memories of being a pike-let trying to avoid predation by kingfisher or heron, says ‘get the hell out of here!’
On the other hand, something splashing about in the water is a different proposition entirely. It usually means that something alive, and probably edible, is in trouble and therefore the commotion is at least worth investigating.
Think about what most splashes in nature signify.
In my maggot drowning days, I came across a number of fish with wounds obviously caused by the beak of a bird, and I have seen plenty of fish-eating birds hit the water to fly off again disappointed. Such bird-strikes make a hell of a splash and often result in stunned or wounded fish remaining in the area of the splash.
On many occasions, I have seen seagulls drop a fish into the water (especially when being mobbed by its ‘mates’, or when they have lost an aerial wrestling match with an eel), again usually making a pretty large splash.
Other splashes may be made by small creatures falling from overhanging branches or banks, and certainly splashes are often made by ducklings, frogs, water-voles and spawning fish, etc.
Matchmen will tell you that most coarse fish now recognise that the splash of groundbait balls hitting the water is an invitation to a free feed. Pike must know by now that those splashes also signal an imminent gathering of prey fish, preoccupied with feeding.
If I were Esox, with several million years of evolutionary experience behind me, and I were hungry and heard a splash, I know what I would do – I’d investigate.
Putting this theory into practice has since resulted in a few bonus fish for me.
My advice is, do not be too quick to haul a lure away from the spot where it landed, try twitching it a few times and give it a few small tugs before beginning the retrieve proper. If there is a pike nearby, it is almost certainly heading towards the splash, looking for an easy meal.
Spoons especially, should be allowed to flutter down twitching them slightly. Before they hit bottom, give them a sharp upward pull and repeat the process.
Always cast several times to the same spot, your retrieve may have taken your lure out of the area, just as a pike was arriving from the other direction. that pike is now searching around, expecting an easy meal and ready to grab anything that moves.
As for big lures, I found that, in the waters I fish, they didn’t result in extra catches, despite making bigger splashes, and anyway I enjoy casting and retrieving smaller lures more.
The sheep certainly appreciate my return to smaller lures, they no longer automatically move to the far boundary when they see me coming along the riverbank.
However, I am thinking about packing some house-bricks when I next go deadbaiting. I wonder whether the red or yellow variety would make the best groundbait?
Has anybody out there tried it already I wonder?
Tight Lines – Leon Roskilly
(This article was first published in Issue 77 of Pikelines (August 1997), the Magazine of the Pike Anglers Club http://www.pacgb.com )
