The PIKE ......... and the PLUG !
by Nick Caine

PIKE ! What a species ! It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that pike transformed my fishing life ! My early and very happy years of fishing fun were spent mainly free-lining for chub and perch in my local river, using worms from our garden. Of course from time to time I had seen the occasional small jack pike or pickerel while I was fishing for my favourite chub but my first real encounter was when I lost a nice chub of about 2 1/2 lbs to a marauding pike! At the time I thought that pike was absolutely massive but looking back in reality it probably weighed less than 10 lbs.

After this encounter I went home full of mixed emotions: excitement, shock, fear, anger ....... and a new determination to catch that plundering pike. But, other than perhaps using a free-roaming live bait (a method that didn't really have much appeal for me then or now), I didn't have much of a clue about how else to go about tackling this fearsome fish. Until that is, I was browsing through an old copy of the late, great Bernard Venable's Mr Crabtree Goes Fishing that my Dad had in his collection.

And there, before my very eyes, were some sure-fire methods used by Mr Crabtree and his young angling protégè Peter. Like I said, I didn't fancy using live-baits but I was absolutely fascinated by the section about using lures, plugs and spinners to catch big pike. The main thing about Mr Crabtree that really fired my imagination was his boundless enthusiasm and permanently positive attitude: no weather or water conditions or venues were so bad or too difficult that you couldn't catch decent fish of one species or another!

But it was my big pike that I was after, and you can imagine my excitement when I read that it really was possible to catch pike, big pike, on lures, even small lures, if you followed his advice! "That's the answer" I said to myself " I'll get that pesky pike on one of Mr Crabtree's jointed, wiggling, diving plugs!" ..... but where to buy them? Eventually on one of the dustier shelves in the corner of my local tackle shop I found an old plug hanging off its moth-eaten cardboard display board. But it was just like the drawing in Mr Crabtree's book, so I had to have it, and a couple of ready-made traces too of course.

     And here's a photo of a plug that's very similar to my original one:

So, after parting with what seemed a big chunk of my last two weeks' pocket-money, with great excitement I took my new-found lure home, cleaned it up, checked it out and sharpened its treble hooks: I just couldn't wait to get back to my river for Round 2 with that pike!

But first I'd need some stronger tackle than my chub fishing rods and reel so I borrowed some sea fishing tackle, not too heavy but nice and strong with a big multiplier reel, which I now know to have been completely OTT for my needs. The reel was loaded with thick nylon line and I thought to myself "There's no way this pike's going to get away!"

At the very first opportunity I was on my bike and off down to the river with my new plug ready to do battle with pike but before going to the exact spot where that pike had stolen my chub, I thought that I'd better try out my plug with a few casts to get the hang of this lure fishing lark.

I found the multiplier reel quite difficult to use at first, having only used centre-pins and fixed spool reels before. Finally I got to the stage where I could manage to do fairly consistent casts in distance if not in direction.

Mr Crabtree had explained that in almost every patch of weed there was a huge pike lurking, ready to grab anything that passed by, or at least that was how I had interpreted what he'd said. So, seeing a thick reed bed not very far to my right, I lobbed my plug right where I knew Mr Crabtree would have wanted me to, as close to the reeds as possible.

Believe me, I was NOT ready for what was to happen next! The water erupted as though someone had lobbed a hand grenade in! I nearly fell in as well! I quickly recovered and as soon as everything had subsided a bit, I looked for my plug but it was nowhere to be seen!

I wound in some line and as soon as it went tight, I could see that it led straight into and under another clump of reeds on the far bank. I was gripped by a combination of fear, anticipation plus my determination to get my new lure back. I put an awful lot of pressure on the line but nothing moved!

"%$£*&!" I thought, " A massive pike must have grabbed my lure and isn't going to let me have it back!" This is when I was grateful that I'd taken such strong, maybe too strong, sea fishing tackle. After what seemed ages of tugging and pulling from all sorts of different angles, finally, out from the reeds came a very, very grumpy looking pike ...... with my plug in its mouth!

I was so determined to get my lure back that I quickly lost any fear that I'd had for the pike, although I also quickly realised that I had no idea what I would do if I actually managed to land this huge beast! Well, it seemed huge to me at the time! Eventually with a struggle I managed to get most of it into my small circular chub landing net, with its orange mesh if I remember correctly and of course, the hooks started to get tangled up with the mesh (Of course I use a much more suitable frame and mesh nowadays!).

I quickly lifted the net and my pike on to the wet grass (I use an unhooking mat these days of course) and got out an old pair of wire cutters that for some reason I luckily had with me. I cut the hooks free of the pike and the net and recovered my precious plug. These days I always carry a pair of long nosed pliers and some decent forceps.

Next I quickly wet my hands and, terrified of its vicious rows of needle sharp teeth, I double-checked that there were no parts of the hooks left behind and was just about to lift it back into the water when, with one flick of its tail, it arced back into the water with a huge splash and was gone!

And of course, that was the end of that ! No more fishing to be had that day because I didn't have any spare hooks with me. These days I always carry a little box of spare hooks with me: do you?

I also carry a camera which I didn't in those days. It's one of those small compact fully automatic cameras that's supposed to be splash-proof but just to make sure, I keep it wrapped in cling-film most of the time. I do the same with my mobile phone and this has proved a God-send on the more than one occasion that I've fallen in.

Well, anyway, I had hooked my pike, and, in turn, I was hooked on lure fishing - know the feeling? I should add that since then I've become a bit of a sink & draw fanatic with lures and with deadbaits: it's a method that hardly ever fails to get results on the hardest venues. I also often use an up-trace spinner blade when I'm "sinking and drawing" with deadbaits and I'm preparing a separate article about this technique.

Meanwhile, I hope you've enjoyed sharing my "Initiation Ceremony" into lure fishing and maybe you too are able to identify with it to one degree or another - I hope so.

All the Best,
and Happy Lure Fishing !
Nick Caine
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