wanted dead or alive

hi guys Does anybody fish on a regular basis on live bait but then change to dead baits and found that the quality and size of the pike have improved .Having fished on lives till about 1990 gone on to deads purely because of the hassle i.e rules and regulations.... what do you think......

i livebait a lot and think its a bit like lure fishing you do pick up more jacks the big girls cant often be botherd to chase but will take a deadbait it helps using big lives but not always last year i had a 6lb pike take a 1lb live perch

deadbait wrote:i livebait a lot and think its a bit like lure fishing you do pick up more jacks the big girls cant often be botherd to chase but will take a deadbait it helps using big lives but not always last year i had a 6lb pike take a 1lb live perch

hi deadbait you reminded me of one time i was fishing in the lake district i always fish a big bait on one of my rods which was a large whole mackeral and caught pike about 3lb on it i think it was trying to mate with it

pike are mad i went through a phase of using massive livebaits and the amont of times small jacks were hitting 1 to 2lb bream was unreal

and it works the other way round realy small baits and catching big fish like yaers ago i used to fish the ribble for some good sized eels fishing a half small gugeon on 10 lb wire trace just in case .Hooked into i big fish played it for about 15 minutes then it went down stream could do nothing with it never saw fish balliff thinks it was big salmon i think it was big pike

have used live in the past,hassle,but i found beter results on deads,only had a couple of big doubles on live,so don;t bother lives now

i do sometimes still livebait with roach/perch on where permitted but to avoid the smaller fish i have a "special" method..... it weighs around 1 1/2lb and looks like a smaller version of what we target..... might not be to everyones taste and tbh i'm expecting some flack for this one but believe me it works

not from me mate small jacks are the best bait there is and if people livebait they cant say anything a livebait is a livebait nomatter what the species

you could buy frozen jack pike years ago have used in the past not done that well to be honest dont think i could use alive jack but i have been tempted when i have caught very small pike on the fly 8 oz pike

i've agree with you rob - small jacks are an awesome bait