ground baiting

is it a good idea to spray maggot at around 25 30 feet and to deadbait at 40 50 feet i feel it may atract a lot of roach etc would i attract pike or am i wrong.



i am fishing scottish lochs.

it does help at times, but every water is different. 40/50 feet, is that distance or depth your fishing. one thing that has helped me is a feeder filled with cottonwool then soked in oils. i have had good results with the new pike bombs feeders. if you dont get a bite in a hour or so, move, try another spot. then try again at the spot later. try diferent baits, pop them up. one on the bottom, and one on the drift try and find where the pike are. hope this helps bro.

I've never bought into the theory that locating the preyfish will help you locate the Pike. Preyfish might help you find prolific numbers of jacks, with the the odd decent fish but I rarely, if ever, find the better Pike anywhere near the preyfish haunts.
Pike don't eat that much. A Pike can maintain it's weight on 3 times it's bodyweight of food a year. To increase in size, they may only have to eat 5 times their bodyweight in food a year. That really isn't a lot so think about it.
Why would Pike expend energy following shoals of fish around that they have absolutely no intention of eating?
The best Pike spots I know of have almost no preyfish in residence and I also know of preyfish spots with almost no Pike in residence. That suggests to me that Pike don't 'hang around' near the preyfish at all.
Think about this too. If you were a Perch and Pike were constantly hanging around your chosen swims, you'd find different swims to live in but you can almost always find preyfish in the same areas, throughout the year.
Now I'm not suggesting that Pike never visit well-known preyfish marks. They do but I think they only come around as often as hunger dictates and if what we know of Pike diet is true, that won't be very often.
If you want to locate Pike, use Bathymetric Charts, local info, use your own eyes, search for them with lures or other efficient search-tools, like wobbling outfits. Use anything that might put you in the right spot, even bribery....lol but don't rely on preyfish shoals. They can very often draw you away from the Piking 'Hotspots'

....Andy....

use Bathymetric Charts........... andy would you tell me how to read tho's maps, how you read them , what you look for. ta

geordiedave wrote:is it a good idea to spray maggot at around 25 30 feet and to deadbait at 40 50 feet i feel it may atract a lot of roach etc would i attract pike or am i wrong.



i am fishing scottish lochs.

No experience of Scottish Lochs but a pike is a pike and they all eat fish. I would say, locate the prey locate at least some of the pike. I am sure that you are talking about distance and you theory is that you build a swim of bait fish at 30 feet from the bank and place your deadbaits beyond the edge of that. It is a sound theory that you should investigate. Plenty of match anglers encounter (get pestered by) pike to make it a good theory. Try it a few times to see if it is working though, once would not count as an experiment. You might also consider wobbling and lure fishing as the pike may want a moving bait. Remember one thing though...you need to locate the pike first! On a scottish loch I can imagine the pike all being miles away from you, especially at this time of year when they will be turning their minds to spawning.

Keep us informed

Andy Webster