Yet another lure to try

I can't really call this home-made, as it's just a bog-standard grub mounted on a jig head, with a spinner blade from AGM clipped on to its nose.  The blades are £2.35 for six, so no big deal if they don't turn out to be pike catchers.  I'll let you know how it gets on.

Eel work out a bit on the pricey side

Ash's face was a picture as he tried to get a jack-ravaged Real Eel to stay on the hook for a few more casts the other day. At £8.99 for three, I felt the big fella's pain. I know he had a thirty on one last winter, I know they're an incredibly life-like imitation, but £3 for six inches of soft plastic..?

We'll never know if he'd have caught the same fish if he'd had a 50p Kalins or some similar, considerably cheaper bit of plastic on the end instead of what was one of the next big things last season. Soft plastics are, of course, a gold mine for the tackle trade because they have a limited lifespan.

Once they get chomped a few times, they're off to the big lure box in the sky and you end up forking out for another packet. I've no idea how many pike I've caught on a couple of my favourite Rapala J13s, but they do last for ages.

Shads and other softies are like throwing money in the river by comparism. I've had fish hit Hammers or Kopytos I've not connected with, reeled in and found just a tail-less blob left on the hook. I guess this rant's a bit tongue in cheek, as I'd think nothing of getting through a tenner's worth of lamps if I was catching well on deads.

Copying is rife among lure manufacturers. So maybe someone's cooking up a budget Reel Eel on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Wisbech as we speak.

Thoughts on three lures

I've tried three lures for the first time this autumn and caught on all three, which is an encouraging start. They're different variations on the time-honoured plastic shad, which I'm currently using most of the time.

Big Hammer

I really like these lures now I'm starting to get the hang of them. The big, square tail really kicks on the retrieve and pike seem quite partial to the 4.5ins version.

It took me a few trips to get my head round how to use them. I know, it's a swim bait - you chuck it out, and reel it in. The crucial thing with these is use the right jig-head, as in one of the wedge-shaped shad ones AGM sell.

They seem to work best with around 15g of weight . On anything lighter, or a ball head, the tail's frantic action makes the lure roll from side to side, rather than swim naturally. 

Mounting the head flush to the back of the lure also seems to help get them to swim right. You also get the odd one which seems to have an even better action than the others in the same packet. They're hand-poured, so I guess there's probably some slight variation from lure to lure.

AGM sell them in around a dozen different colours at £3.99 for four. Creeping Death and Atomic Punk - as opposed to red, orange and black - both produced on their first outings, as did the silver, sparkly one with the yellow tail, whatever that one's called.

They have one flaw, as I soon discovered when I started catching a few on them. They're made of incredibly soft plastic, so you sometimes only get a couple of fish on one. Worse still, a missed hit sometimes results in a tail-less lure. 

Kopyto

I like these too, especially the 4.5L version. It's a slim-profiled shad which has a lovely wiggly kick on a 10 or 12g jig-head. 

The 5ins version has a deeper-bellied profile. Stick a 15g head on its nose and it gets a nice wiggle on, even on a slow-ish retrieve.

They come in more patterns than you can shake a stick at, don't ask me why but the pearl or yellow ones seem to be banker colours.

Like the Big Hammers, their main drawback is you'll be lucky to get more than a few fish out of one, while the odd thump on the end you fail to connect with will sometimes mean another tail-less lure on its way to the bin.

These are around £1 each from Lure World.

Mikado Fishunter

These are a bit of an acquired taste - imagine a shad made from jelly, as in the mainstay of a decent fruit trifle, and you're not far wrong when it comes to this lure's durability.

But while the first fish that hits one of these usually shreds it, Fishunters are cheap and cheerful - I got them at £2.99 for a packet of five from Lure World and have one or two other things going for them.

The makers claim the head of the lure "sucks in" jig-heads. A 10 or 12g head sits nicely in the moulded recess. Beware if you use a drop or two or super glue to mount your shads, as some types don't agree with the plastic these are made from.

++They've now one back to £4.25 for a pack of five...

Half price Rapala Glidin' Rap

I didn't know Rapala made jerkbaits either. First impressions of this one straight out of the box are it's a well-made, good looking lure. It's roughly the same shape and size as a Shad Rap, but without the lip and with finer-guage VMC trebles.

Not every mass-produced lure does what it says on the tin, but they reckon this one will get down to 5ft and zig zag if you bring it in with downward taps of the rod. I'll let you know how I get on with it.

+++They're half price at Harris Sportsmail at the moment - £8.49 instead of £16.99.

Another must-have pike fishing lure..?

My must-haves just gained another member. This is a Bagley B-Flat. I have no idea why they call them these, other than they're a bit, well, flat. You'll notice this one is in fairly pristine nick. I did have another one, which caught several, before I lost it on a snag trolling.

It was a ringer for the surviving member of the pair I bought on eBay. As in almost identical. But it didn't seem to sink quite as fast, or have the pike appeal of its long departed cousin, which is probably still festooning some old bit of junk in one of the boatyards at Wroxham.

Rapala Magnums - the lures that time forgot..?

I'm adding lures to my must-have, not to be left at home under any circumstances collection as I turn out shelves and boxes in search of forgotten favourites.

Some earned their place in my affections because I actually caught on them. Others promised pike, but failed to deliver last time around. I liked them all the same, because I knew I'd catch on when the right day came along - or possibly the day I finally got the hang of using them.

The lures are in pole position when it comes to kicking off this winter's campaign. How long I stick with them comes down to how much I enjoy this new approach. Enjoyment, as ever being the bottom line in pike fishing.

When I enjoy fishing somewhere, I keep going back. Sometimes this is down to enjoying what I've managed to catch - others, it's down to enjoying what I might catch if I stick at it.

My latest must-haves are Rapala Magnums. Lean, mean, deep diving Magnums. A lure that was designed for trolling but offers the option of being worked along the bottom, albeit clumsily, when worked from the bank until it's big lip bumps the clay.

Magnums are all but forgotten these days, in the aftermath of the jerkbait fad. A lure that's been overtaken by events, you might say - superseded by new techonology in the plastic department.

Maybe, just maybe this will be their season.

Old pike fishing lures by Storm and Rapala

I had a load of fish on this a few years ago. Memories of a particular morning came flooding back when I found it in a box of lures from the past, tucked away on a shelf behind a load of CDs. I'm not sure you can still find them these days.

It's a Jointed Thunderstick, one of several I bought years ago when I had the lure bug. This was the only one I ever caught anything on. In fact I only even remember it working on one particular drain, for a few hours after dawn one morning, when I had seven or eight twitching it slowly across the top.

That's about all you can do with these. They run very shallow, and if you try and pull them down deeper with a few flicks with the rod, they end up flying out of the water instead. They were hip for bass fishing for a while, but the problem is they're so light they don't cast very far.

One that's definitely going back in the box for a few chucks this autumn. And what do I find along with Mr Thundersick..? A Rapala J13 in the once must-have fire tiger colour scheme.

Storm Live Kickin' Minnow and Live Kickin' Shad

I liked these lures as soon as I saw them. I liked them even more after I went out to give them a quick dunk.

I  doubt they'll last more than a few fish, but they're incredibly life-like in the water. On a slow-ish retrieve, they swim just like a fish.

They also come armed with just a single, sensibly-sized hook. It's probably too small and in the wrong place to translate every hit into a hook-up, but when you do catch one, you're not going to do it too much damage.

This is something which put me off a lot of the lures I used to use, especially those which have a large single amidships and a treble underneath.

If I'd wanted to give them a proper work-out, with a chance of catching something, I'd probably have headed for one of the rivers or drains, but I settled for half an hour on Enigma.

I was well-impressed with the lures' action. I particularly liked the roach-patterned version, which looks extremely life-like in the water, to the point where I just know it's going to catch when I find some pike to show it to.

They sink rapidly, head-first, but rise up on the retrieve with the rod top pulsing as you bring them in. If these had been about when I was into lure fishing a few seasons back, I'd probably have caught a lot more pike doing it.

A couple of these take up next to no space, so I'll probably start taking a lure rod and one or two of them along on bait fishing trips in the winter.

They weren't expensive either, at £4 each, so it's not going to be the end of the world if they fall to bits after a few fish.

Best lure for pike fishing in the Fens..?

I used to catch more pike on Shad Raps than all my other lures put together. Back when I used to use lures far more often than I have in recent seasons, when I used to regard it as a good method on the right day.

Other anglers have a love-hate kind of relationship with these babies. Some reckon they can't get a hit on them. Some regard them as poor hookers, which I've never found to be the case, although I do check the hooks every few casts and give them a swipe with the sharpening stone as soon as they don't catch when you drag them over your thumb.

One reason I like them so much is they seem to work equally well cast or trolled. When you cast them, you can twitch them back slowly, bulging the surface. Or you can get them down with a few sharp swipes with the rod, reeling the slack in faster to keep them running deeper.

You'll struggle to get them down much deeper than six or eight feet casting, but that's often all you need on the shallower drains and rivers. If you feel that big lip hit the bottom, pause briefly and the lure's so bouyant it backs off without snagging most of the time.

My best one's not actually in the picture. I can't remember ever catching anything on the red and white one, which explains its pristine look. The yellow one's nailed a few in its time, but the ones that always worked best for me were the roach patterns - both the natural one and the silver foil variant, closely followed  by the shad-patterned one with the blue dot.

Messing about with these to get a picture of three lures has got me quite into using them again. One ambition for the coming season is my first twenty on a lure. I've somehow never managed it, although my lure captures include pike to just shy of 19lbs and half the rear bumper from an Austin Montego.

Counting on lures for pike fishing in the Fens

When I started lure fishing, around 10 years ago, I started with a selection bought from the then Harris Angling Company. One or two of them caught fish. One or two of them didn't. And the rest ended up festooning trees, lost on snags, or sold on eBay.

I pressed on all the same, graduating to better rods, getting better at using multipliers and learning the actions of different baits. My collection grew in leaps and bounds, until I gradually tired of wandering the banks, slinging lures for a succession of jacks and the odd double.

After a season or two when I've hardly ever used them, I've decided to dust off a few and give the method a second chance.Rummaging around the house, I'm surprised to find how many of the things I actually own.

Losing count at over 100, I wonder what ever possessed me to buy them all. I must have fished with most of them at some point, but less than a tenth of them probably ever caught anything.

Most reliable of all were Rapala Shad Raps and J13s, closely followed by spoons. One or two of the jerkbaits I bought, during a brief flirtation with jerkbaits, caught. Another dozen or so didn't.

I also found boxes of soft plastics, of different shapes and sizes. I must have been really into them at some point too. Yet most failed spectacularly to deliver much apart from the odd jack.

They say the bad workman blames his tools. I can't deny an element of this when it comes to lure fishing. As I lost faith in it, I returned to baits and occasionally caught the bigger fish which had eluded my efforts with lures.

So why go back..? Because it's different, it's a change and there's an obvious box which needs to be ticked, having never caught a twenty on a lure. If I prune my collection down, add a couple of new hopefuls to the old favourites, who knows.

If I can shake off my hoodoo, it'll be the hardest-earned twenty I've caught in several seasons.  That's reason enough to give it another go.

More lure fishing for pike this season

One thing I plan on doing more of this coming season is lure fishing. One reason for this is I've never caught a twenty on a lure, despite having phases when I was really into it. After getting my lure-caught best up to a whisker over 18lbs a few seasons back, I lost interest  as my efforts to improve on this failed.

Most of the time, I seemed to catch fish around the size of the one of the left. Last season, the lure rods gathered dust. Seeing a picture of a 28lbs fish from a water I've never quite got to grips with has whetted my appetite. I've never had a twenty off the water concerned either, so it's one to pencil in for a look when autumn comes around.

And then there's Enigma, the water which doesn't officially have any pike in. I'm not into summer pike fishing for obvious reasons, but I'm going to have an evening or two on there before the weather warms up just to see if I can catch one to confirm it's worth a go later in the year.

I now know for certain that there were pike in it many years ago. But they died, like everything else in the lake, during a catastrophe that occurred one winter's night a decade before I was born.