Let's twist again, like we did last summer

I was never 100pc happy with the crimped traces I made last winter. I didn't have one fail on me - possibly not surprising, bearing in mind my pitiful tally of bigger fish. I just couldn't find quite the right-sized crimps, it looked a mess passing the wire through three times, you need a sleeve, then you worry whether the wire's OK under the sleeve, etc.

Twisting had its drawbacks too. I know there are people in the Fens with 11 fingers, but most of us only have two pairs of hands.That means it's a faff trying to keep the turns neat as you twist and maintain the right tension in the wire to twist without unravelling or kinking it.

Easy answer..? Make a jig. I don't know why I didn't think of that years ago. It could be as simple as an anchorage point in a block of wood, which you clamp to a workbench or table top, or you could go for a full-on base, with different lengths marked on it.

The anchorage has to be secure. It also needs to turn under tension to get the twists right. Easy way of doing that..? Ball bearing swivel and an old coastlock. Screw it in as shown.

To start off, tie an overhand loop in the wire, cut to length and twist on the bottom hook. Do this by forming a lark's head hitch and heating the end of the wire to anneal (soften) it first.

Take the wire out of the coastlock, cut the loop off and tie the top hook in. Then stick the top hook in the coastlock, while you twist on the swivel at the other end.

Simple or what..?

Does my bung look big in this..?

Dead simple gravel pit rig for deadbaiting - cross-lock to attach trace, buffer bead, ET "river float" (no idea why they're called that, as they're just as good on drains and stillwaters...), bead and stop knot. Four or five swan shot on the trace, which cock the float as the wind blows a bow into the line.

Time for bigger floats and heavier rigs

One thing that's become obvious over the last couple of days is that the rigs I've been using just aren't heavy enough to cope with the flows I've been trying to fish in.

So I've broke a couple of rods down and tackled them up with the biggest through-the-middle sliders I've got, eight-inch polystyrene sea floats. I reckon these will stay up in any flow the drains can throw at them.

This all looks mighty crude, compared to my usual way of fishing, but I can't see me catching much until I can at least cope with the conditions. So its out with the big sliders, two or three ounce running leads and a trace with the hooks stepped up to size twos for good measure.

Probably the best rig for legering for pike

Lots of people come to this blog after searching for best rigs for pike. Here's an easy-peasy leger rig for pike fishing on rivers, pits and drains.

First on the line goes a run ring. Then a rubber tulip bead, followed either by a Gemini clip or a Gemini clip swivel attached to the braid by an eight-turn uni knot.

Tie a mono link to the run ring. You need the lead on a link, as opposed to just sliding on the line for a couple of reasons. One, less tangles as it sinks. With a heavy lead fishing straight off the main line, it can tangle with the trace as the rig sinks.

Fishing drains and rivers, you often need to let the rig sink on a slack line so the bait stays tight to the far bank shelf, that sexy bed of Norfolk reed or some other feature.

Two, you can cast a lot further with the lead on the link if the lead's either the same weight as the bait, or - if you want to get max distance - a bit heavier. For max distance, try baits like a six-inch lamprey section rigged head-up.

Make sure your baits lie straight in the freezer, because if you get a bend in one it'll spin on the cast reducing distance or worse-still, causing a tangle if it turns around the main line on the way out.

I generally fix the link slightly shorter than the trace when I'm fishing the bait on the bottom. When I'm popping it up, I use a longer link.

Either way, I use clear 15lbs Amnesia for tying up links. I doubt the pike can see it, but it's a seriously-robust mono. If I think I'll need to change leads, I tie one of the smaller Gemini clips at the end. If not, I just tie the lead on.

Tighten down to it, as you put the rod in the rests to - hopefully - await some action and you're tight to the bait and the run ring. It might look crude, but it's quite sensitive when you think about it.

Some people use leger stems. But when you think about it, the stem doesn't do what it says on the tin once you tighten up to the rig, because the stem lies over.

Basic stuff, compared to some of the rigs you see these days for fishing for carp or other species. I doubt there's a better way of legering for pike.

Korum Clips great for tweaking pike rigs

Magic chickens aside, yesterday did have one small positive. I had a couple of rods tackled up with just small floats and trace clips, intending to drop baits in the margins with them. When I got to the drain, the wind and flow meant I needed a lead to anchor them.

Out came the little Korum Clips and bosh - lead added in a second, without needing to break the rig down. I guess I could also have just put a run ring on when I set the rods up as well, but I have a feeling I'm going to get to like these clips.

I can think of one or two other uses for them. Maybe they're a rig bit that's wasted on carp anglers. Bit more on 'em here.

Power Gum

Here's another useful little item to tuck away in your rucker - a spool of Power Gum. I always start out with a couple of rig stops to set the depth on my float rods, but they don't last forever.

Sooner or later, they start to slip - even if you use two and moisten the braid before you move them.  Then they fall off, which is where the Power Gum comes in. It's great for tying stop knots, mainly because you don't have to break the rig down, slide on the rig stops, re-tackle the rod etc.

Sooner or later, I'll probably dump rig stops and just use Power Gum all the time. Leave a bit of a tag on the stop-knot and it goes through the rings easier than if you trim them down to a stub, which tends to catch.

Fuse wire tip for popping up deadbaits for pike

This is all you need for attaching bait poppers or polyballs to your traces to lift your deads off the bottom. Fuse wire costs a fraction of what they charge for the special wires you can buy in tackle shops to do the same job.

It's also better than using nylon, because it's a lot quicker to add bouyancy and make adjustments when you only have to twist the wire around the popper and the bend of one of the bottom hooks.

If you leger baits using a running paternoster - with the lead off a run ring and nylon link stopped at the trace swivel - it makes for a tangle-free rig you can get a fair bit of distance with.

You don't need bait poppers, either. You can get polyballs in all shapes and sizes from craft shops or online for far less money, you just need to carry a darning needle to get the wire through them.

Fox Trace Blades

Some of the best bits of pike fishing kit are the ones which you can just take for granted and forget about, because they never let you down.

I've used Fox Trace Blades since they first came out, because they're the best tool out there when it comes to cutting the trace wires I use for bait fishing.

I didn't realise quite how useful they were until I lost them and it took me a week to get round to buying another pair.

They now cost around a tenner, but when you bear in mind they don't seem to wear out and are just as good at cutting braid as they are at cutting wire, that's not exactly expensive.

Most people I know have a pair of these. As well as making traces and trimming knots, they're handy to keep in a pocket somewhere in case you have to cut a trace when you land a fish with a flying treble, or when the bottom hook is hanging out of the gill arch.

I have a couple of other Fox tools - a pair of their long-nosed pliers and a pair of their cutters. The pliers are sometimes better for unhooking fish, especially wheh you chin them or unhook them in the water over the side of a boat. The cutters come into their own when you need to cut a hook that's snagged in your net mesh; or sometimes when it's easier to cut a hook and remove it piece-meal, like when you get one in a pike's rakers.

Pike fishing rigs and tackle for the Fens

Rather than having an array of rigs up my sleeve, I tend to use just two for most of my bank fishing which I can tweak according to how far out I'm fishing and whether I have any wind or flow to contend with.

The mainstay of this is the float-legered dead bait, which ticks most of the boxes when it comes to a simple, reliable set-up you can use just about anywhere.
 
At the start of the season, when the rivers and drains aren't pulling off much and there's still some weed about, I fish fairly light with just a couple of small bullets above the trace swivel to give me something to tighten up to. The bait provides enough weight to cast 20 or 30 yards.

The float's set just over-depth by a foot or two, so it lays flat when the rig settles and cocks when I put the rod in the rest and tighten up. A slight breeze or a little flow helps by dragging the floating braid I use on the reel into a slight bow.

If I need to cast further or the wind or flow are enough to drag the bullets along, I'll swop them for a run ring and an ounce flat lead, or larger bomb.

There's a stop a couple of feet above this, which the float attached waggler-style via link swivel sits on when casting, to help avoid tangles. I use and swear by the various sizes of ET Bob Floats for this, as they allow you to change to a larger float if needed to prevent it being dragged under by the wind or flow.

That's pretty well it, except when fishing off a boat or when fishing flowing rivers, I tend to use a through-the-middle slider and fish with the rod tops angled upwards to keep some of the line off the river - especially when there's floating weed to contend with, as there often is in the autumn months.

For gravel pits or smaller drains, I might change the rig to a home-made balsa pencil float, with three or four swan shots on the trace to tighten up to. I say might, because more often or not I leave the rods tackled up and just use my river/drain rig if I switch to a stillwater or decide to have a day on a pit.

The other rig is the legered dead, usually with a heavy lead fished on a nylon link a few inches shorter than the trace, attached via a run ring. I can cast his further than the float rig and fish with the rod tips sunk if it's blowing a gale or floating weed makes float fishing impossible.

I can pop baits up safely using this rig. I don't like popping baits up under a float because of the risk of tangles. Bite indication is provided by a bite alarm and home-made drop-off with the leger rig. This pretty well it, as far as how I fish is concerned.

I make my own traces, usually using Owner ST36, Drennan Extra-Strong or VMC trebles, usually in sizes four or two depending on bait size. Wire-wise, I use Mason's Multistrand, which at the time of writing costs around £25 for 200yds in the 30lbs strain, for my home-made traces twisted up in my study.

These are stored on a home-made rig bin made from a section of pipe insulating foam and a plastic tub. I'll also have some ET Mr Softee wire with me on the bank, along with a few spare hooks and swivels, as it's easy to twist up traces using this wire if I run out of traces made from Mason's.

I've found other wires to be a mixed bag when it comes to their resistance to kinking. I've tried various 49-stranded wires, which I now rarely use because they need to be crimped. Crimping's as sound as twisting when it comes to reliability, as long as you use the lark's head hitch on the bottom hook and swivel, so the crimp is just keeping the loose end tidy rather than taking all the pressure of a hooked fish.

Once you learn to twist properly - again use the half hitch, then heat the tag end of the wire to anneal it before you make neat, tight twists with a twiddling stick - you'll probably never use crimps again.
I carry a sharpening stone to ensure the hooks are sharp. On gravel pits, I inspect them carefully every cast, as it's surprising how often you can blunt them without noticing until you bump a fish off because they fail to go in on the strike.

Strike's a bit of an out-dated term that harks back to the Mr Crabtree days - as in strike Jim, strike - as with modern-day braids you just wind down until you feel the fish and bend into it.

If you don't use braid, you should. As well as it's lack of stretch, it has a breaking strain four or five times that of mono of the same diameter and lasts for season after season if you choose a brand like Powerpro.

You need to use slightly different knots, like the uni or grinner knot, passing the tag twice through the clip before you form the loop and carefully tighten it. Other than that it's far more reliable thanks to the extra safety margin of 50 or 65lbs breaking strain.

It also floats, which is an obvious advantage for float fishing. When legering, it also sits up off the bottom and drifts upwards when a fish unclips you, meaning less change of snagging up.

For most float fishing, I use either Fox Predator Elite rods in the 2.75lbs test curve, or the now long-defunct Marvic Pike rods, which are delight to play fish on but a nightmare to cast with because of their small rings.

Both are married up with Shimano Baitrunners or various vintages in the 10,000 or 8,000 sizes. Some of these reels are 10 years old and still going strong, apart from the annoying spool wobble they seem to develop after a few seasons.

For legering, I use Fox Predator Elites in the 3.25lbs test curve, fitted with the old metal Daiwa Emblems, which just seem to go on forever without going wrong.

I carry the rods tackled up, with the sections held together with rod bands and those elasticated hair bands you can get from pound shops. If I'm fishing near the car, I just sling the rods in the back. If I've got a walk,

I'll stick three or four in a quiver depending how far I have to tramp to where I'm fishing.

All my gear goes in one of the smaller Korum rucksacks. A mate got me into these and they're superb for pike fishing. I have scales, weigh sling and camera in a couple of the pockets, unhooking tools in another and carry spare floats, leads and trace-making materials in a couple of small plastic lunchboxes.

Even with a cool bag of baits, I've got room for spare clothing, a couple of pasties and a can or two of Wh'upass or bottled water. When it's cold and I'm fishing out of or near to the car, I'll also take a stove, kettle, cooking stuff and food.

Whatever I'm doing, I carry a first aid kit in the bottom of the rucker - antiseptic wipes, wound spray, bottle of Dettol, waterproof plasters and surgical micropore tape. Sooner or later, we all get raker rash or a worse cut from unhooking a pike, get a hook in our fingers or imopale ourselves in a barbed wire fence, so it make sense to carry the basics to sort these kind of minor injuries out so you can carry on fishing.

I also have a bigger first aid kit in the car, for more serious stuff like cuts and burns. Once or twice, I've helped out other anglers who've done themselves a mischief on the bank - I'm surprised how many people I meet don't even carry plasters with them when they go out.

Gemini Genie link clips for pike fishing

These are the other useful bit of pike fishing tackle Gemini make. They're intended for attaching leads to the end of sea fishing rigs, so they're totally bomb-proof. I have no idea what they're meant to break at, but it must be hundreds of pounds.

Where they come in incredibly handy for the pike angler is attaching your trace to your main line. There are plenty of snaps and cross-locks in the tackle shops, including the Berkley ones everyone used to use before these appeared.

While snaps are fiddly, wear out and sometimes come open when they're not intended to, these are as simple as it gets and 100 per cent reliable. You just snick your trace swivel in and that's that - job sorted. I use snaps both for convenience - no tying and re-tying the trace on every time the rods come out of the car or you move waters.

They're also a boon when you have a fish in the net, as you can unclip the trace and drop the rod back on the rest while you unhook it, so no having to carry the rod as well as the net and fish to the mat. That also means less chance of kneeling or standing on a rod in the excitement.

They're £1.99 a pack - 10 of them would easily last me a season, but you get five extra for free at the moment for some reason. They also make them with swivels, which some people prefer.

A seriously useful bit of kit for pike fishing

If you haven't got one of these, go buy one. It really will help you catch more pike over the course of a winter, it's really that simple.

I always carry a sharpening stone in my pocket to make sure the hooks are sharp, because blunt hooks can cost you fish. I inspect them every cast when I'm bait fishing, because it's surprising how often you can blunt them without noticing until you bump a fish off because they fail to go in on the strike.

Gravel pits are particularly bad when it comes to getting a point dinged on a stone or piece of flint. Sod's law that'll be the one that fails to gain a hold in a pike's bony mouth, when one picks your bait up. Hooks on lures need sharpening regularly too - not just every few weeks, if they start to go rusty.

I got the carborundum stone from a tool shop. It cost me two quid four or five seasons ago and it still does the job, despite getting a little bit grooved. The pocket file alongside it in the picture below cost around the same from Tesco. It's got a finer groove in it, which is ideal for touching up the points on smaller hooks on bait fishing traces.

Both stone and file are used in a similar way. Just grasp the hook firmly by the shank, between thumb and forefinger of you left hand (if you're right-handed...) and stroke the stone along the point, working from the bend to the point.

Don't try working the hook along the stone, as - speaking from bitter experience - it's an easy way to end up with a hook point in your finger.

Once you get the hang of if, you can sharpen the hooks on a bait trace or a lure in a few seconds. And those few seconds just might make all the difference between a good hook-hold and a fish that stays on, to one that comes adrift.

Maps of the Old Bedford River and Delph

Here's a useful couple of schematics of the Old Bedford and the Delph, which shows how the system operates to allow excess water to collect on the Ouse Washes before it can be discharged out to sea via Welmore Sluice and the tidal Ouse.

This is one of the more vulnerable areas of the Fens, as far as the impacts of climate change and rising sea levels are concerned.

It's also likely to become one of the areas where pike fishing becomes more vulnerable in years to come, as conservation groups buy up areas of land to turn them into new wetland reserves, to replace threatened coastal habitats for wading birds.

For now, it remains one of the more challenging parts of the system, partly because of the impacts of siltation and periodic problems with brackish, turbid water being allowed into the lower reach of the Bedford to replenish levels for irrigation during dry summers, and occasional fish kills caused when the water "turns" after heavy rain, causing oxygen levels to crash.

Pike are mobile and seemingly in decline on both drains. A few big fish were caught last winter, from areas off the beaten track. But like many of the drains in this part of the Fens, those who were successful had to put a  lot of hours in and some long walks to find them.

They're still fascinating waters to fish, partly because both the Bedford and Delph were dug when the drainers first began to shape the Fens into the landscape we know 300 years later.

The map below gives a view of the Middle and South levels, bordered by Well Creek, the Ely Ouse and the Old West. It's perhaps no wonder where to start is the dilemma many pike anglers face as autumn nears.

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.

Big pike, small amount of watercraft

I was like the proverbial dog with two dicks when I caught this pike. This was partly because it came down to a snippet of watercraft, a throwaway remark that's put me onto the odd decent pike in the Fens ever since I noted it down for future reference.

We all know location's half the battle. If you can't find 'em, you can't catch 'em. But a few years ago, I heard an interesting take on that one that departs from the usual find the prey fish and you find the pike advice.

It's all down to the plants that grow along some of the rivers and drains. Where different varieties grow along the margins, the one to look for is Phragmites australis - aka the common, or Norfolk reed.

While different varieties of plants grow along our waterways - like reedmace, sweet grass, clubrush and branched bur reed, Norfolk reed has a unique characteristic that helps hold pike in a roundabout way.

It's hollow, for starters. That means air can pass down its stem, providing oxygen for bacteria living around its roots - which in turn digest rotting plant matter, which would otherwise silt up the margins.

A veteran Fen angler once told me he looked for swims where Norfolk reed grew and fished tight to it for zander at night. His theory was it attracted them - or rather the small fish they fed on - because the water tended to be that little bit deeper where it grew.

That helps pike too - well, this one seemed to like it. In fact the spot where I caught it has a spit with reedmace growing on one side which has silted up, and Norfolk reed on the other where there used to be three or four feet of water off the stems.

I fished the reedy side, as opposed to the reedmace-y side.

Click here for more twenties from the Fens, NB work in progress.

Is braid the best line for pike fishing..?

A couple of seasons back, I had a brief return to using mono on a water where I needed to fish with the lines sunk to avoid the frequent boat traffic. The 20lbs nylon I spooled up with worked a treat, meaning I didn't have to reel in every five minutes. Everything was peachy, in fact - until the alarm went and I pulled into a fish.

After years of using braid, I'd forgotten how stretchy nylon is. Landing a mid-double seemed to take an age as it bounced around just out of reach of the net. I'd convinced myself this was because I wasn't used to using mono by the time I'd unhooked and returned it.

A fish or two later, plus a couple that inexplicably came off almost as soon as I'd pulled into them, I realised I was wrong. Nylon was still as crap as it was the last time I used it.

Back in the days when I used 15lbs Daiwa Sensor as my main line, I seemed to spend half the winter buying the stuff. After a few trips, it always seemed to get twisted and ribbony, where the stretch had been knocked out of it.

I used to cut back the last few yards every couple of trips, but still suffered the odd breakage. I'd had pretty much the same experience with premium brands of nylon, that cost twice as much.

When braid came along 10 or 12 years ago, it was a learning curve. The first brands which came on the UK market had their limitations. Some were prone to tangles. Others quickly went "furry", which cut down on casting distance.

You had to put mono backing on the reel, to prevent braid slipping on the spool. You also had to spool it on tighter, through a wet cloth, to cut down on those infuriating tangles caused by any slack, and make sure it was tight when you closed the bale arm - again to make sure a turn or two of slacker line didn't find its way onto the reel, causing another tangle in the making.

But when you got used to it, it was amazing to fish with. Since then I've tried two or three different types before settling on 50 or 65lbs PowerPro for most of my fishing. The price has come down since then, to around £35 for 300yds. If this sounds pricey, bear in mind the stuff lasts for several seasons, in fact I've had it on some reels for five.

You can carry the rods tackled up, with a clip to attach the trace, with the same knot lasting several sessions as long as you use the right knot - learn to tie a grinner, taking the line twice through the eye of the clip or snap swivel.

From time to time, you read that braid isn't as abrasion-resistant as mono. I don't know where this idea comes from, as if anything it seems far more robust than nylon. Apart from its lack of stretch, the other great advantage of braid is you can straighten the hooks on most snags with a straight pull.

You also snag up less using it, because it floats; meaning it doesn't lie along the bottom when you're legering. When a fish unclips you, the slack line rises up in the water slightly, meaning less risk of catching any debris on the bottom.

Floating line is also a boon for most kinds of float fishing - from float legering a dead to free-roaming, trotting or even drifting an un-dead.

Making drop-off indicators for pike fishing

I started making drop-off indicators a few seasons ago, because I wasn't happy with shop-bought versions. It took a little trial and error to get them right, but once I'd got my head round the two main problems, they were simple to solve.

Problem one was that the plastic clips they came with were fiddly to adjust and - potentially worse still - had a nasty habit of sticking to braid. That meant drop-backs didn't always register promptly. The other drawback, which compounded the first problem, was that they weren't heavy enough.

I cured both problems by using Solar ball clips, which being made of metal, didn't stick to the line. They were also far easier to adjust and didn't slacken off once you'd got the tension right. Solar also make heads, which take screw-in weights.

I originally thought this would be useful, as I could adjust the weighting. Before long, I just stuck to the heaviest weights, which are around an ounce. Fish tight, with the drop-off right under the reel, and they'll ping off the line as soon as you get a pull. You can tighten the clips when fishing in wind, flow or undertow.

The weighting means the set-up will register a drop-back, while the ball clips don't stick to the line, meaning the indicator will drop, pulling line through the alarm, meaning you'll hear it go when a fish comes towards you.

I don't buy into this idea that if you use a heavy enough lead on your rig, a pike which comes towards you will still register by pulling the line out of the clip, due to some pulley effect. In my experience, the fish moves the lead most times, meaning the line slackens and the weight on the indicator makes it show a drop-back.

The stem of the incicator is just a cane barbecue skewer you can buy for peanuts. I glue a rig sleeve to the end so it screws into the thread on the weight. It looks a bit ramshackle, but they stay put for months. If I break one, I just stick another cane skewer in.

At the other end (not shown...), there's a bit of thick silicone runner to make a hinge, attached to the time-honoured Terry clip. The heads and weights cost around £10 an indicator - or they did when I made these. Once you've bought these bits, they last forever unless you lose them or your mates nick them.

I always use a front alarm, usually one of the budget variety, because at £20 a throw, it's not the end of the world if you lose one or drop it in the drink. It also means I don't have to use different alarms for legering and float fishing.

Go swivel on this baby

Swivels. What's there to say about swivels, other than they're a vital connection between you and the pike.

A lot of the time, they don't actually swivel, for starters when they're under load. The main reason we use them is because they're a convenient way of attaching a trace to your rig. The main thing you need is strength and reliability.

Living near the sea, it's no surprise my local tackle shop stocks Gemini gear. These are the bits a lot of sea anglers make their rigs from - including swivels designed to withstand chucking rigs with five or six ounces of lead around.

I don't know if sea anglers are more price-conscious than carp or even pike anglers when it comes to such things. But the bits and bobs they use not only come in plainer packaging. They also cost a fair bit less.

Take these Gemini swivels, with an 80lbs breaking strain, which are £2.40 for 25. Swivels in the carp section of the same shop come in a nicer packet, with rig diagrams in several languages. They also cost more than twice as much, for half the breaking strain, which probably works out an expensive way of learning how to explain a carp rig in Italian.

You'd probably struggle to push a 40lbs swivel anywhere near it's limit in most pike fishing situations - apart from repeatedly casting heavy lures, when you'd presumably be looking to step things up for safety's sake in any case.

An 80lbs swivel means a swivel you can just stick on your trace and happily forget about, in my book. So what if they're plain steel-coloured, as opposed to black. Gemini make something else that's totally streets ahead. Stay tune for more on this, when I can remember where I've put them.

Click here for more reviews.

John Roberts run rings reviewed

These might not look like the most exciting bit of kit, but two quid's worth will last you a season and enable you to make what's probably the perfect rig for legering deads. Thread one of the rings up your line, followed by one of the rubber beads and that's it - job sorted.

The bead will snug down over a size eight swivel or a Breakaway clip. Tie a link to the run ring and attach your lead to it. Simples.

Some people like a lead link longer than the trace. This looks all wrong to me, surely the fish will foul it with a hook point when it picks your bait up or get the link in its laughing gear, ergo lost lead or a pike with a headache after you smack it on the nose with your lead.

Mates tell me this is my usual paranoia, don't worry four eyes tie the lead on a three foot link and hull it out there. I tend to ignore this and have a link shorter than the trace, so the lead is just ahead of the bait.

Either way, you can cast a lot further than you can with a bomb running on the line straight off a bead or clip, with no link. You also get less tangles.

If the link wraps around the trace on the way in, get your scissors out and do like what we do - cut the tail off the bait, which is what makes it spin on the way back when you're reeling in. It also stops the tail masking a hook when you pull into a fish, so the ironmongery goes into the pike's gob, not the bait's tail.

The rings eventually groove if you use braid. I chuck them when this happens, as they're only 10p a throw. I've never had one break on me, even when using 4oz leads for distance or when the Ouse is flowing hard.

John Roberts make several other little bits and bobs that are usually a couple of quid for enough to last yonks.

Best river for pike fishing in the Fens

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how different cliques of pike anglers view different waters in the Fens. Their experiences sometimes lead them to draw conclusions which are completely at odds with each other's - how one man's meat is another man's poison, if you like.

Take the Ouse, a river which has been good to me on a handful of occasions over the 15 seasons I've fished it, dealing me a bum hand far more frequently than a decent fish or two.

I've never caught a twenty downstream of Queen Adelaide. What few I've ever caught from the river have come from one or two areas with little in common, other than they were throwing up a few good fish at a time when I was fascinated by the Ouse and spent a lot of time trying to get to to grips with it.

Just as I started thinking I'd got my head round the river, it went off the boil for me. Some big fish came off another stretch I was targeting a few seasons back. I knew I was fishing bang on the money, right swims, right method. But could I catch it - the fish nudging 30lbs that was knocking about the same area..? Sadly not.

We wrote it off in the end, my mates and I. One big fish in one big, daunting river, we seemed fated not to catch. To add insult to injury, I lost a big fish off one of the few runs I ever managed on that part of the Ouse one freezing February afternoon, as ice formed across the river.

Yet others were quietly catching with a different approach, completely at odds to ours. It seemed so obvious I kicked myself, when one of them candidly explained it to me after I quizzed him about pictures I'd seen that looked like the area we'd been fishing.

The first time I tried their method, I had seven or eight fish to mid doubles from a stretch I'd given up on in a single morning. No monsters, but I thought I'd cracked it all the same.

I told a mate, we went back the weekend after and blanked. I tried the same swims several times as the season wore on without success. At the start of last season, I had a lanky double on the bank first chuck doing it their way. That turned out to be the only run I managed in half a dozen trips up and down that part of the river.

By then, another water was screaming fish me, fish me. That turned into another long haul, but at least we finished the season with a couple of twenties each.

Towards the end of it, I bumped into one of the guys who'd done well on the Ouse. He hadn't had a run on the water we were fishing. But he'd had a couple of twenties on the river - from the bit we'd long since given up on.

You should try down there, he said. People say it's hard, but it's loads easier than here.

Click here for a 20lbs pike from the Ouse caught on film.

How much gear do you need to go pike fishing

Not much is the obvious answer, in fact the assortment in the picture goes in a couple of those plastic clip-lock lunchboxes you can pick up for a couple of quid in supermarkets, which I now much prefer to tackle boxes.

Nothing against tackle boxes per se, but they make it very easy to carry stuff you're hardly ever likely to use. When I re-discovered the joys of walking and a more roving style of fishing last winter, I soon realised I'd fallen into this trap.

Leads were the biggest offenders when it came to extra weight, for obvious reasons. I keep a box with a selection of different styles and sizes in the car, but only take when I think I'm going to need with me once I set off for the water.

Floats don't weigh a lot, so it's worth taking a few in different shapes and sizes in case you need to change methods or the wind or flow changes. Other than that, you don't need a lot else in the way of end tackle - a little bits box with spare clips, beads, run rings and swan shots takes care of all the nuts and bolts in case I need to alter a rig.

I have boxes full of other stuff, much of which I used to take just in case. Another reason to prune the kit down, apart from wear and tear on the legs and ticker when I'm on my toes, is I'm shortly looking to change to a smaller vehicle.

Part of the idea behind this is it will be far cheaper to get about once I start pike fishing again. One of the knock-on effects will be there won't be room for all the stuff I used to lug about with me when I was fishing waters accessible by vehicle.