I started fishing for pike maybe 13 -14 years ago when I moved to pike country. Before I had fished for them, but only here and there as they were usually a long drive from home in Calgary, for the most part. Ive researched a lot of different rigs, tried a lot of them, and wasnt happy with any of them.
Two hook rigs, either the visible hooks scare away wary big fish, or one gets caught on the ice and lets the fish escape, or can stick in the fish or the fisherman if their luck is really bad. 3 hook rigs, even worse! a treble has a lot of surface area for a pike to clamp down on with the 3 bends and Ive had a good fish open its mouth and the hook fall out. (then again my son and I both caught a pike this winter that was too hungry to let go of the bait, not hooked)
Since I got my first camera, Ive been watching and learning, no better teacher than the one eating your bait!
Some days, a pike will hit a bait before you can get it to the bottom, Ive had a few actually come right up into the holes to grab a bait on aggressive days. Other days you can beg and plead with the fish, but all its going to do it put its nose on your bait and examine every scale on it. Then after a long time turn, give you the fin, and swim away. Its amazing how smart a fish in a busy lake can get, they can see your hook, and even with a fluorocarbon leader Ive watched them stare at it to the point of following it up a ways.
A few seasons ago I was fishing with a friend on a different southern lake, I had thought about trying a different type of rig but not sure what to go with by then. I saw he was using a single circle hook, and doing quite well with it. I decided to give that type of rig a go, occasionally I will use a circle hook, but for shallow water pike I prefer a smaller bait and a size 4/0 or 5/0 J hook so I can set the hook as soon as they take the bait, another reason I prefer camera fishing.
This season in the last 4 or 5 outings, between 80 or 90 pike Ive had to cut my leader twice, they managed to get the hook in the roof of the mouth too far back for me to dig for, so I just donated them. The rest including the fattie walter I caught yesterday were all hooked in the corner of the mouth, or in the jaw, all I do is lift their head out, grab the hook with pliers, a quick twist and the fish is off to get back in the line up for my next bait (actually happened yesterday)
My new rig for pike and walleye on bait is a simple single hook tied on the leader with an overhand loop so the hook swivels easily. Thats it thats all. When the fish are eyeballing every scale on your bait you can hide the hook under the skin, or if they are aggressive you can just hook a smaller bait under the dorsal and let it hang.
Same setup for a bigger bait, I watch to see where the pike are grabbing the baits, and adjust my hook placement to somewhere they arent eyeballing. usually I put the hook in the middle of the bait, a decent pike will take half the bait first bite when they turn it and usually get the hook. I could go with a second hook for big bait, even tried it the other day but I do prefer just the single hook. I lose fish that dont get the hook sure, but when you are catching 15 or 20 fish a day who cares, keeps things interesting! Especially if one was a biggie. You have to be willing to lose a lot of baits, if you bury the hook as deep as you can, remember you have to rip it out through all the bait to get it to the fishes mouth. I will attach some pics from this past few days. walter was a fat 26 inches, I figure with the girth it was definitely between 0
and 10 pounds
would be in my belly but not a keeper lake.
Im not telling anyone how to fish, just sharing what is working great for me, I wont go back to trebles for pike since almost all my pike fishing is catch and release, its nice not having to handle most of the fish, if shes worthwhile I will let her in for a pic but usually they just swim away now. The grippers are handy for a big walleye I wont use them for pike, especially after getting lectured twice by the gimp the past couple weeks!
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Toss the lipgrips for pike!!!