Tactics for lakes/ canals

A brief intro, i'm used to fishing the coast with small plugs for bass and pollack. Since i live in Birmingham this limits my opportunities to a couple of times a year.

An old boy in the pub suggested i tried pike fishing to get my lure fix.

So here i am, i tackled up, and hit the cut with some Toby's i use on the coast and my usual box of plugs.

It must have been beginners luck as within the first 3 hours i caught a jack of about 12" length (don't know weight as i plan to travel light, i don't carry scales!)

I took this on a trusty 38g Dexter Wedge cast into the reeds and retrieved quickly to stop it hitting the bottom.

Later that day i took a large pike on a Toby out of the same canal but a few miles away. This has driven me nuts, 2 pike on my first trip!

4 trips later my total still stands at 2, i have spent hours and hours reading forums and blogs about dead baiting but that doesn't interest me as much as the plugs/lures do.


Yesterday i visited Plantsbrook NR in Birmingham which friends have told me holds some nice pike, there dead baiters though so asking them for tactics is pointless.

I spent an hour casting into a deep lake to no avail, i was happy as i got to see my diving lures at work and got to play with my retrieval speeds on my rubber shads to make the tails flutter!

My question is though, in clear water, from the bank on a big lake, is it worth using lures, and what lures would you use?

I cant wait till the summer when the pike are taking off the top but until then can anyone give me any pointers? (i have done my research about summer fishing and i respect the pike needs to be handled properly and returned as quick as possible)

Anything that works for bass and pollack should catch pike.

Dexter wedge....lol....now that's a lure. I have to admit, I tend to use them on the end of mackerel feathers but if you've caught pike on it, fair play.

I wouldn't avoid deadbaiters. They fish lures too and they might be able to give you information you hadn't thought of.

No reason why you shouldn't catch on a dexter other than it's size, first pike on a dexter after all

Learned a valuable lesson about using a stinger on lures yesterday but will post more on that in another thread!