Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

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For anyone unfamiliar with the site always check the FISHING ARCHIVE and TACK-TICS pages. The former now extends back as a record of four years of (mostly) sea fishing and may be a useful guide as to when to fish (I'll put the freshwater stuff on once this is up to date). I keep adding to it and to the tactics pages which are mostly 'how I do it' plus a bit of science. The Fishing Archive is effectively my diary and will still take me a little time to bring up to date but often several pages are added in the space of a week.

14 March 2005.

Different rivers.

I tend to spend quite a few winter sessions spinning for pike in my local rivers. Both provide excellent sport and produce lots of fish - in fact I said to my friend Nigel the other day that I probably average about one pike every half-hour of lure fishing. Of course there are the odd blanks and equally unusual hectic sessions but, overall, the fishing is pretty consistent.

Live and deadbaits will generally produce bigger fish than lures - on the whole - but if I stick to BIG spoons, plugs or (recently) rubber lures I land a fair proportion of doubles. That is to say I do from the smaller of the two rivers. In the other, although it contains lots of pike and they do grow big (the biggest pike I have ever seen took a smaller fish that my son Richard was playing on that river) fish in the teens of pounds are much less common. Why?

The answer may lie in the nature of the habitat and the availability of suitable food. However the graphs taken from the same rivers show that growth is similar in the two rivers. Perhaps there are not enough decent sized prey to keep the larger pike growing well??

Small-River pike.

A picture I've used before but the fish is bigger than any I've had from the other River this year.

- another from the smaller river.

Not quite as big but it would be a good fish on the larger river.

Large-River pike.

typival 'jack'.

- and another.

This one's a reasonable size.

- and another.

This one's a bit small for the lure but I've had even smaller ones from this river.

How many decent pike are present in the smaller river?.

About one fish of eight pounds or over every quarter-of-a-mile.

Growth rates!

growth is only a tiny bit slower in the larger river but the fish don't grow as big.

Big bait - no small fish???

The maximum prey size is about half the length of the pike.